Not Triffids, Tribbles

Back in June, I showed you pictures of the weird and wonderful Cardoon plant that overwintered at the John Brown House historic vegetable garden, and flowered this year.

Cardoon Seed Pod

Here are what the seed pods look like.

They remind me of the cute and cuddly but overly fecund friends from The Trouble with Tribbles episode of the original Star Trek series.

There's an invasive species message in there somewhere.

After the first frost in a few weeks, we'll cut back the foliage, and mulch these guys well and see if we can keep them going into 2013.  Even if not, we were able to collect enough seed to have plenty of plants for the next couple years for our efforts here and at Renfrew, plus leftovers for the plant sale.