teosinte

good news today about teosinte. i've been searching for seeds for a couple of weeks and yesterday was the breakthrough. the united states department of agriculture's national resource conservation service (nrcs) is sending us a pound of teosinte seed because this is an educatioanl project affilliated with a university. cool! extensive searching has also turned up
http://www.nativeseeds.org/

a seed conservation group in the southwestern u s. i have purchased a few grams of seeds from another strain of teosinte from them to add a bit of diversity to our planting. this is the only place i've found outside the government where you can obtain seeds...teosinte does not seem to be a wildly popular plant, and there may be good reason for that, at least around here. the usda had expressed doubt that the teosinte will produce seed at this far north a lattitude. ( in fact they have asked me to inform them if we do succeed in producing any). teosinte flowers late in the season and it will take a warm late season period for us to go to seed ( this, of course, is a common reflection on my personal condition...but it has little bearing on the matter at hand except as an expressed hope for next autumn). the seeds should be shipping on november fifth and the usda has promised detailed planting instructions. i'll be posting pictures when they arrive and are planted. thanks to joe hollis at http://www.mountaingardensherbs.com/
and john shuck at gary metals. additional thanks to dr. mik stokely and dr. kathleen forgey for helping out and just being so generally supportive.