two days in july

the garden changes day to day...however, sometimes it's subtle and you have to look around a bit to spot the differences...from the distance of the top two photos nothing much seems to have changed...status quo...there's nothing static out there though...the cucumber in the third photo has changed into the one in the fourth...straightened out some...put on some weight...so much so that it is hanging down the vine farther so the blooms visible in the third photo above the cuke have disappeared out of the frame of the shot in the fourth...sensitized as i am to jerusalem artichokes i see more blooms today than there were on tuesday while the cucumber in the seventh photo was hardly noticeable two days ago..finally the garden seems to be home to a variety of tomato that vanishes as soon as it ripens...there are always new fruits appearing on the vines but i can never seem to find a ripe one..puzzling.

a month

a month's worth of growth ( give or take a few days ) in the beds.

corny morphology

the large teosinte plant in the first photo is about as tall as me ( there have been some strikingly unfortunate photos of the plant and i taken together...i detract from its presence...they remain private...if not deleted )...the next four photos are of teosinte plant and a maize plant alternately just to show some of the morphological similarities between ancestor and descendant...you can tell they are of the same family...much like the solanum cousins on the south side of the house...perhaps some photos of that are in order...or in the community garden tomorrow...the sixth photo is of ramp flowers that re taking their sweet time in blooming...and the last two are grapes in the trees at the end of the patio...their season is moving along...hoping for a better ending this year.

netted

pretty much a maintenance trip today with a small project...some potato fruits ( top photo ) are left on the vine and i would like to see some mature there...i have netted some at home to keep the critters off and so i transferred the idea to the community garden ( second and third photos )..so much for the project..watered and did some weeding and as i roamed the garden took a look at things...the curly kale in the fourth photo had a distinctly palmy look to it...good to see it being used...the jerusalem artichoke blooms are beginning to proliferate and will do so for some time...i foresee dead heading in the near future...cukes ( as if i needed to say sixth photo ) are proliferating as well...some large ones ready to go...last two photos are longer shots of the garden at nearly mid season...things will begin to thin out soon enough as the spuds finish...it is too late to plant much beyond garlic in septembner and them begin to plant green manures/cover crops for the winter...still the beans and tomatoes will go until the first hard frost and then there's the sunchoke dig...still a season out there.

o! pioneers

there is still evidence out there that this was a corn field last season...but you really have to look for it now...it is being subsumed by non commercial plants that have colonized the field ( which has been transferred to the care of what must be assumed is a more aggressive realtor ) ...the pioneer plants are usually annuals...what most call "weeds"...as i have said umpteen times my definition of "weed" is in serious flux so i will simply call them plants...after the annuals colonize the bare ground perennials begin to move in...this is already underway half way through the first fallow season since i found thistles, milkweed, and queen anne's lace (sixth seventh and eighth photos respectively ) which are all perennials on the perimeter of the field...if this field is allowed to fallow for however many more years it takes to actually build some more redundant commercial property on shrubs will begin to move in and the place will resemble a savannah...but not for long since, left on its own. trees will eventually make an appearance...movement towards forest is the general rule if a climax community is allowed to form...i am skeptical of this...but weirder things have happened...a woodlot would not be a bad thing....1:19.m. as i look a bit more into it what i took for milkweed may be thistle instead...it seems to me milkweed pods open later in autumn and that i may have mistaken matured thistle for something else...there is surely quite a bit of thistle out there...whichever it is, perennials are on the move as the next succession takes hold.

inchelium red

brought in some more garlic this morning...that harvest is nearing completion...still a couple more to go out there but they will be in by the end of the month...this is inchelium red garlic which is a softneck variety...as i have been bringing these bulbs in i have noticed more than one with a secondary bulb growing on the stem above ground which is a new experience for me...some research tells me that this is a defense mechanism to insure reproduction triggered by the cold winter...a trait not shared by hardneck varieties...so i get a bonus...i nave garlic bulbs to use in cooking and i have secondary cloves to plant in a few weeks...my garlic just went local as my green manures.

togetherness

last week i wrote about some corn i found in the field by the supermarket that was planted ridiculously close together...while the corn has achieved greater verticality in the intervening week it would seem that i wasn't near to finding the plants that were closest together...i don't see how any could be closer than these two...they practically touch and they are significantly shorter than their neighbors...i believe i have picked out enough reference points that i will be able to locate them again and it will be enlightening to see how well they produce compared to their peers with better spacing...the bottom photo is of some bees in my yard resting quietly at about 5:30 this morning...even busy bees need a break.

one week left in july

ever since the mason bee disaster i have pretty much had my own way out in the yard...which makes me a bit nervous because it aint natural...there is a certain amount of stoicism inherent in gardening...not everything goes according to plan...sometimes the surprises are unexpectedly pleasant when something that looks unpromising turns out well...then again there are mason be debacles...the grapes in the trees are softening and turning color which is what they are supposed to do...it's what they did last season until they withered on the vine...hopefully that lost season left me with a stronger plant rather than a terminally weakened one...we'll see by septemeber...if the mason bees failed the alfalfa leaf cutter bees did not...they seem to congregate in the same place and they seem plentiful ( there are more on other branches and still others buzzing about...nature takes...nature gives...i will accept that quid pro quo...the tesointe looks great...four robust plant have survived the season so far...the two shown here and a couple more..bu that early flower bugs me...sure there are branches forming at auxiliary buds and branches on large plants can produce their own flowers...but i cannot find any evidence of silks to go with that flower...it is just too early...so what's up? don't know...i aim to try to find out..so a mixed bag with good empirical evidence and a boatload of questions..the season rolls on.