Saturday, December 15, 2012

december grasses

neither the wheat grass from kansas or the forage wheat grass i planted two years ago have found their way to dormancy...the land institute grass continues to grow actually and the line of grass just east of the asparagus is still bright green...add to this the fact that i am still weeding out competing plants from the square meter allocated to each the wheat grass domesticates and i am inclined to believe that another episodic winter is here...it did snow quite a bit last year but it always seemed to melt within a week...that went on until winter abruptly ended with eighty degree days in march and a completely confusing season for the perennials...the gamagrass continues to withdraw the last of the chlorophyll from its leaves as it decided that the time for dormancy has arrived...it is still there but the amount of green in the plants is lessening week to week...only to return as the plant "greens up" in march...i am curious to see how the plants behave over the next few months and equally curious about how the new batch of jerusalem artichokes i ordered and planted will fare compared to the fourth generation plants i intend to grow from last season's harvest...weather variations have always impacted plants wild or domesticates and there have always been good and bad seasons...a climate shift is something different from a seasonal anomaly and may have a deeper impact on perennials that have evolved to local conditions...i keep searching for native plants to grow with an eye to behavioral changes...i've added ramps and ginseng for the coming season and i am still scouting usda resources to find more...there's still a plant morphology/folk taxonomy going on so there will be more teosinte/maize going on and i think i have found a source for wild potato germplasm so there will be "wild and weedy" ancestors in the potato patch as well...the planning season is underway because the planting season begins in about four months...more as it comes up.

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