the twelve days since i first hilled the potatoes has seen quite a variance in the weather around here...yesterday it was in the mid-ninties and dry as a bone...today it's in the upper sixties and there has been a deluge most of the morning...this combination has stimulted quite a bit of growth in everything including the potatoes...to the extent that some of the plants were falling over ( at first i thought some of the neighborhood ferral cats or some other varmints were bedding down in the plants, but a closer inspection forced me to rethink that)...since they have at least another month to go before harvest ( i planted on the same day as i did in 2010 but this was a much colder spring so virtually everthing besides the spinach and turnips got a later start so the potatoes will reach maturity a bit later than the early july harvest i had last year ) i got out there with some really viscous compost and hilled them back into an upright position...since it's only been twelve days between hillings, and since the forecast calls for more of the same sort of variable weather i am inclined to think i will be out there once again propping plants into verticality...i've already staked up the asparagus on campus and here at home too ( and i mulched the asparagus on campus this morning in an eigtheen minute break in the rain that commenced at 8 am...gardeneing is many things, but it is not always slow paced and it is never boring ) the jerusalem artichokes are self-supporting fortunately...so that should be the extent of the support needs...things seem well...no nasty surprises...yet anyway...all the strains of maize and teosinte are doing fine...i'll try to find the time to post some photos...the northern tepehuan teosinte is particularly interesting...there is nothing like the family resemblance that maize has to zea dipoloperennis and i cannot recall seeing a grass ( outside the trees out there ) that has branches...it's really neat stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment