backyard

the home garden is moving along with a mixture of results...the zea perennis in the top photo is doing well and looking like the "wild and weedy ancestor" g w beadle said it was...the second photo is of one of the stands of jerusalem artichokes that are nearing the size of those on campus...these were rouges culled from campus after the officially sanctioned planting sprouted so they are running a bit behind...this will not deter them at all... the third photo is of a cowpea that has germinated in part of the potato bed that has been harvested ( the potatoes are plentiful but running on the small side...i think because the bed they were in got entirely too much shade from the surrounding trees...the plants grew to a rather large stature taking up energy that would have been utilized in tuber production in a sunnier spot...as the potato rotation moves westward in the raised beds they will encounter more sun and hopefully produce larger tubers...before the cycle returns them to the original bed some pruning will be in order...autumn will see seamus and i busy with saws...i will post the mediocre results when they are all in ) it is part of the nitrogen fixing/retention project and will run wild until late october when it will be turned under just prior to the winter wheat planting ( using winter wheat as a nitrogen reservoir certainly not a new idea...it has been going on in fields around here as long as i can remember...but there's something i have noticed this year in my jaunts down county line road...the fields of winter wheat haven't been turned under and planted in dense yellow number two field corn...a surprising number of them are being harvested as wheat crops...as a commodity wheat doesn't carry the price it did a few months ago but it still has a better price than corn...with ethanol subsidies on the table in bargaining over budget cuts perhaps there is some second guessing going on...a few rents in the corn/soybean industrial monoculture?)...you can see the cotyledons just below the leaves that are providing the seedling with food until the root system is developed enough to take over feeding the plant...the cowpea is a dicot because there are two cotyledons and they will shrivel and fall away as their purpose is served ( can you tell i've been reading botany texts? if i could find a university around here that offered some botany classes i would take a few just to say i did...alas...biology out the yazoo...no botany...autodidact kicks in)...in fourth place is one of the three apple trees out there...they have recovered form their initial shock well and are all producing new growth...lots of water and sunshine are moving things along...in the bottom photo, looking corny as ever, is a potted zea diploperennis...in close proximity to a zea mays plant in another pot, both cousins are cooking along in the abundant sun on the south side of the house...so far so good...not all the results have made me jubilant...no bitter disappointments either...incremental progress and learning...can't kick about that.