skeletalization

monsoon-like rain for fifteen or twenty minutes this afternoon...a deluge..then the sun emerged and i went to have a look around the yard...four maize plants in a bucked ( first photo ) are about eight inches tall...not "knee-high by july"...however i was late getting them in...three teosinte plants ( second ) look very corny...he imported wild strawberries ( third and fourth ) are doing fine...ans s o is the bogota market mashua on the trellis ( fifth...the mashua balnca is good as well ) the flowers on the ramps ( sixth ) will , soon enough, come to resemble the ball of onion blooms at the community garden only on a smaller scale...there are many small brussels sprouts ( seventh ) appearing on the plants that survived the winter...the leaf cutter bees have filled another tube in the nesting block ( eighth ) they have been busy...they are, however, not the only busy insects out there...the skeletalized leaves on the yams ( ninth and tenth ) and the grapes in the catalpa tree ( eleventh and twelfth ) could only be the work of one insect...japanese beetles...and i found more than one...so...time for spray bottles of neem oil...but not to day...it just rained/..we will wait...but not for long...time to put a stop to this business.

new leaves

there is a threat of rain...but not enough of one so i went to the garden after work to water...things are good...they yukon golds in the first photo still have a bit of season left in them...which is fine they will be done long before the ones i planted on may twenty-seventh ( second through fifth ) come in in august sometime..and those will finish up before the ones i planted on the twenty fourth of this month ( sixth through eighth ) qhich will finish in september...except for the blues which will go on until i pull them...the teosinte ( ninth ) had no leaf curl today ...a sure sign that the plants could have held out another day without rain at least...no matter, i watered anyway...there is new growth in the asparagus bed ( tenth ) and the onion flower is a ball of blooms ( eleventh )...near the end if june and things are moving along...look for flowering jerusalem artichokes next month..and, hopefully, asparagus berries.

odds and ends

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corn sweat II

i work a few miles from the garden and it had rained there this afternoon...still i went to the garden to have a look anyway and it is just as well i did...what i found was some drooping jerusalem artichokes ( first through third photos )...hardy natives, when they begin to droop it is time to water...the teosinte ( four through seven ) was curled from transpiration...another sure sign of the need for water...so i doused the bed with the hose and about fifteen minutes later the curl had vanished ( eight through ten )...a trait the teosinte has passed on to its descendant maize...the spuds that were planted a few weeks ago are coming along ( eleven and twelve ) and the onion is still in full bloom...finally i found some wheat growing at the base of the asparagus...something of a surprise since i can recall only ever having planted winter rye in this garden...perhaps a seed stowed away..it's possible.

cornfield singularity

a trip to the supermarket took me by the ironic cornfield ( first photo )so i stopped in to have a look...compared to last week ( second photo ) some of the corn has grown ( third ) and some has not ( fourth )...vagaries of sunlight access and precipitation...just like the suburban soybean field, there is a lot of biomass growing in the rows that isn't especially intended...thistles, dandelions, and, a bit unexpectedly, lichens growing amid the decaying detritus of 2015's corn crop as well as non-corn grasses ( fifth sixth seventh and eighth )...the anthropogenic detritus in photos nine through eleven point out the suburban locale of the field...how much of this is generated by the supermarket? does farmer brown have a substance abuse problem? the trash in photo twelve is telling...the last photo is of something i really did not expect...a lone ear of winter rye in a corn field that ws a bean filed last year ( and no...i did not plant this )...a singular find...wondering what's next.