firsts II

more firsts moving along in the garden...the jerusalem artichokes ( top photo ) are at or above my eye level and they are budding furiously...soon enough they will prove for another season that they are members of the sunflower family...the flowers look more like sawtooth sunflowers than the seed producers , but the petals are more rounded and the center of the bloom is a lighter color...it may be difficult to see but the pole bean vine in the three sisters bed has completely wrapped the maize plant ( second photo ) and is producing some fairly large leaves...looking for some blooms here soon...and speaking of ( more ) blooms, the first corn flowers have begun to emerge ( bottom two photos )...when flowers emerge can ears be far behind? there is a virety of maize in the garden, heavily weighted towards sweet corn...but cynthia was planting apache red, hopi blue, and dakota black popcorn on planting day and they're all up and running...hopi blue we know...in fact the seed she planted was grown in the garden last season, overwintered in my house, and came up viable this year...at least in part because i paid attention to what buffalobird woman told me...zea mays will be producing shortly.