Tuesday, September 20, 2011

nearly autumn







i went out to the garden on campus after work just to have a look...thinking there wasn't much going on...at least visibly...it's getting on to fall and the jerusalem artichokes are setting tubers...but there won't be any news about those until next month..but the garden is never still and it showed me that again today...the top photo is of the asparagus plant on the southwest corner of the garden...you can see it's busy putting out another spear two-thirds of the way through september...that is the ninth spear from that root ( i swear i planted only one crown in there...i have photos...check out the "asparagus day" post)...it put out seven last year...it must really like that corner...the next two photos are aerial bulbs the yam vines are producing...i remember the appearing earlier last year, but we had a much warmer spring in 2010 than in 2011...everything started later...so i suppose it will be late in finishing as well...the fourth photo is of some cowpea pods that are maturing nicely...by next month i should have enough seeds to plant another generation next year...the green manure project continues in what i hope will be a self-sustaining manner since i have thirty plants in my back yard as well...bottom photo is of the garden at about four-thirty this evening..the jerusalem artichokes are done flowering and are starting to die back...i will cut them down soon ( and bring them home to use as mulch ) but will wait to harvest until the cowpeas die back...then it's time to plant the winter wheat cover crop/nitrogen reservoir amd mulch the yams and asparagus...and the zea diploperennis too, although i am not sanguine about it survival...what did i say about nothing much going on?

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