silks

a second flower has appeared in the large stand of teosinte...however, more importantly ( for me anyway ) i have found the first silks emerging...the weather is due to say above freezing for a time...viable seed is probably impossible...there may be ears yet though...and is till can't help admiring a well turned set of support roots.

ramps

i have collected the seeds from six of the seven two year old ramps that flowered this year ( the seventh is not finished yet ) so i decided to take them out of the containers i had them in since july or so...they are dormant so they will not notice tha they have been spread around the bed as a sort of group of sentinels...there to warn me of spring sprouts...i have an abundance of seeds...i count one hundred and twenty-two...plus the twenty i sent off in the mail as a surprise for a friend...now i need to find a shady spot to plant them in before winter..they need a cycle of heat and then cold to break dormancy and can, if conditions are not right, take two years to germinate..not as touchy as ginseng ( which i have never succeeded in growing here ) but difficult none the less..a few more seeds and the harvest is done...then the geography of the yard becomes the issue.

zea mexicana blooms

yesterday i was out taking shameless selfies of my and my stand of tesointe while grumbling about the lateness of the season and "where are the flowers already?"...perhaps the plants were listening or, more likely, i was not looking high enough into the upper reaches of the now 10 ft.+ tall plants, however, on this 85 degree ( fahrenheit ) evening i have found a fully fledged flower and a nascent one...not normally a fan of warm weather i will be hoping for an extraordinarily warm autumn ( i may get my wish i was planting daffodil bulbs last december as i recall )...the race is truly on between seed ears and frost...viable seed is probably impossible..but seed ears and some morphology are not...geeked.

early fall at the iuncg

the season at the community garden is winding down...true ther is maize coming to fruition...and the asparagus has has a fine season and is green still...and there are sunflowers blooming too...but frost is on the way so the jerusalem artichokes will need to be harvested and the asparagus will die back, be cut down, and be mulched by november...the beds will need to be cleared...and , possibly. planted with cover crops or green manures...but for the moment it can ride until the time to do the work is found.

yacon

yacon seems to have an agonizingly long season...think back to last christmas day when i found the three rhizomes in the top photo growing on the roots of plants in containers under the lights in the plant room and planted them in yet more containers...the rhizomes sprouted another generation of yacon and when the last frost threat ended i put those containers outside for the summer...autumn is now here and the yacon shows no real sign of tiring so i went out to look at the roots...the first one i investigated produced nothing but roots and some nascent fruit...no rhizomes...the second one ( third photo ) did have a well formed rhizome which i will be harvesting soon to start a winter season in the basement...the third one i planted last december has also produced a rhizome...however it has already sprouted a new plant...i will be looking at removing it as well for the basement season before it sets too deep a root system...fall is here and it looks as if the winter indoor season has already begun.

first day of autumn

just some of the goings on in the back yard on the first day of autumn...from the top...egyptian walking onions establishing themselves for winter and a volunteer spud that may be in trouble...a wild berry the birds haven't found yet...hard red winter wheat joins the onions in working towards surviving winter...the sweet potato patch has been busy and is about done...a couple of photos of intertwined support roots on the teosinte...no signs of flowers yet however, impatience...more teosinte along with jerusalem artichokes safely contained, a maple tree that was rescued from a bean field, and some yacon...ants working on a split cherry tomato...there are more ripening and i brought a few in tonight...a hot banana pepper..and a bell pepper...there is more...still spuds going on and the ramp seeds are still maturing ( i have harvested 53 so far )...there will be more to do soon enough preparing for winter and the garlic hasn't arrived yet...still that to plant...then we move indoors.

a few beans...

it's getting light later these days and i was out early enough to catch a late setting moon over the bean field...the signs of autumn from foliage dying back to ripening poke weed berries are everywhere ( not that odd when you consider fall is only four days away...we'll see if it is a long transition like last year was )...as i wandered into the field proper i was, at times, difficult to determine where the berm ended and the beans began...looking south the rows are still fairly well defined despite the barnyard grass, thistle, ragweed, goldenrod, and that one blade of fox tail...turning back to the north the beans disappear into an invasion of local species that seem to have, in places, almost completely choked out the beans...can the harvester discern between ragweed and soy beans? presuming yes..if not the harvest on at least one side of the field will be difficult.

discoveries and actions

puttering around the yard this late afternoon i found a few things going on...reacted to one by leaving the status quo in place..changed a couple of others..the egyptian walking onions i planted are coming along well and should have no trouble over wintering...the volunteer potato that's popped up ion the onion bed may be facing a bit of trouble..it is late potato-wise and we will have to see....a move indoors? perhaps...one of the containerized jerusalem artichokes i grew just so i'd have some seed had died back so i pulled it to see what we had....we have tubers...half a dozed...so i dug a hole in a bed to store them until i decide what to do with the little bundles of reproductive fury and what turned up? a stray ramp, and a fair sized one too...so i relocated it to the ramp bed on the north side of the house...little surprises...nothing major...still...