Saturday, March 9, 2013

the iuncg and relentless asparagus

while i was on campus today i went to the iu northwest community garden to have a look at the bed i will be using for the coming season ( and , hopefully, more since i am putting in perennial food plants as well as few annuals )...looking it over i figure i can put ten plants around the perimeter ( twelve if i fudge a bit on the separation )...this leaves the central part of the bed for some inter-cropping...i hope to be out there next weekend putting in some compost and some northern tepehuan teosinte since it needs a cycle of cold to break dormancy...that will be down the center and in may i plan to put in some hopi blue maize to hopefully have an ancestor and a variety of its domesticate growing together ( still an anthropology student...still looking at domestication...trying to participate in it at the pgp with the wheat grass from kansas )...the potato introduction station in sturgeon bay wisconsin is sending me five strains of tubers to work with this year and i will be putting them in between the asparagus and the maize...those should be done by july ( and will be the basis for another attempt at a potato saving experiment to see if i can produce a second generation...the last one was destroyed by the fire )...when those come out i will be seeding the open space with a green manure inoculated with rhizobia bacteria to recharge the nitrogen level in the soil...it is a mix of annuals and perennials ( specifically winter rye ) and the rye will act as a reservoir for the nitrogen that can be turned under in the spring...it will be a busy bed if things go well...but a cyclically producing bed is what i'm after...future seasons may see a change in annual denizens but not in the overall plan,

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