i was just out back doing some weeding and general maintenance...watering what needed it...looking for infestations and any other signs of bad news ( none so far ) and i took a few photos to post just in case anyone is interested in what's going on back there...the top photo is the one rational elephant garlic plant ( we will delve into that more momentarily) it's about four feet tall as are the jerusalem artichokes behind it..as i look back at last year, on june 25th 2010 the jerusalem artichokes were topping out at five and a half feet...nothing on campus or here is anywhere near that, but it was a cold spring and everything but the elephant garlic, the spinach, and the asparagus got a late start...off tot he right you can see a chinese yam just starting to find its way up the trellis i used last year on campus and have pressed into service here this year...the potatoes in the second photo are doing fine i expect them to be done by the end of july...no signs of beetles or blight and i hope it stays that way...the middle photo is northern tepehuan teosinte thar's around eighteen inches tall...as big and as healthy as the individuals on campus..planting directly into the ground is the obvious method to use...that's an heirloom tomtato plant to the left and spring wheat to the right...surprisingly planting zea perennis directly in the ground worked as well...mark millard, the usda maize curator told me i might have to use the hydrogen peroxide/damp paper towel method to germinate it and then transplant it since it's touchy about germinating in a temperate rather than sub-tropical environment.,..the last photo is the irrational elephant garlic...why the would execute a one hundred eighty and a three hundred and sixty degree turn beats me...but there they are...the plant that provided the bulbs for all three of these was straight as i recall...some sort of recessive gene perhaps...or the warped environment around here...so there it is...movement everywhere.
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