mulch day started with the zea diploperennis

it always pains me to cut back teosinte...this perennial is a sub-tropical grass and that it wintered over last year pleased me no end but i am never sanguine about its =return...the usda, however has migrated its hardiness zones northward and has placed me in zone 6...which i find to be overt recognition of climate change and the provision of an outside chance for the teosinte to winter over again...what it will do to the native species that evolved in zone five conditions is one of the reason why i have been searching out and planting native species ( especially food crops ) in my back yard...campus has been given over to wheat grass domestication next season with the importation of plants form the land institute..but my back yard is close enough to be useful in researching the impact of the change over time...all that aside, i cut down the teosinte and then covered the plant bases with around eighty pounds of compost...i layered about ten inches if straw over the compost ans then secured the straw with landscaping fabric and staples ...this system has worked well over the last two seasons ion both preserving the plants and keeping mulch from spreading all over campus...i will unmulch the garden in stages next spring, depending on the weather...the asparagus will probably open first followed by the yams and the teosinte last (providing we don't have another record breaking march....and the teosinte makes it through )...the straw will go home with me to mulch and hill potatoes in the backyard where it will be turned under as worm food after the potato season...so the pgp's third full season has ended with much more data collected on plants, production, and morphology...now the trick will be to integrate it into a cogent narrative...more as it comes up.