asparagus

it has been two weeks since i opened the asparagus bed at the community garden and i drove over there this morning specifically to have a look and s what, if anything, was cooking...

i was not rewarded in any extravagant way...but neither was i disappointed...there is a spear that has broken surface on, as you might expect, the root system that was the most prolific producer last season,,,where there's one there will be more and they have a marked tendency towards rapid growth while the weather is cool...we can expect harvestable spears from say mid-april through june...unless summer arrives with little or no warning and the transitional season vanishes...which wouldn't be anything remarkable in these anthropocene days...

some other cold hardy adventurers are around..these overwintered above ground and are turning into spring green garlic plants...i counted ten in this particular bed and there are a few solitary ones scattered about in other beds...so the perennials are back ( yes you can grow garlic as a perennial ) to start the season...the have better than a month until the annuals show up...they will use the time...

critters

from a distance you may not be able to tell...however...there are paw prints in my wheat bed...( and, disturbingly, no germinated wheat yet )...

so i drove in some tomato stakes...

lashed them to stakes for support...

and zip-tied some critter net to hem to deter the beasts...

while the wheat may not be co-operating there are a few things booing along out there...the winter rye, for instance, is looking lush...

i found twenty-two ramps up in the bed...

including a few that are working on leaves...

in a more decorative vein, there are multiple crocuses...

and some irises...slow as things may be moving at the moment these are sure signs it is sping...

inside out

despite the fact that it may be so painfully slow as to be unobservable there is always movement..in the basement...and in the yard...this potted northern tepehuan teosinte plant in the basement has hit the two foot or better mark ...and, while it has not flowered yet it has begun to produce support roots to steady it and it gains verticality...

the ear on this non-standard zea mexicana plant ( in my experience anyway ) is well formed and coming along...

as are these long established ears on another plant...

as well as some newly sprouted ears on several plants...

and while the basement season ( there is more..yacon, mashua, spuds...another post ) slowly comes to fruition the season in the back yard is moving, albeit ( again ) slowly, along...there are nascent leaves on a few of the ramps..a sure sign of april.

hfcs

read "the omnivore's dilemma"? watched "king corn"? high fructose corn syrup is the devil in liquid form...how did i dump eighty or so pounds? i didn't join a gym...i didn't change my daily routine except for one detail...and it was the same dietary detail i changed...i cut hfcs out of my diet...and when i did i found i could not eat two cheeseburgers and a plate of fries anymore ( there's a reason refills are free at burger king )...i don't eat cheeseburgers anymore either...but that is a blog about confined animal feeding operations and steroids and antibiotics...a rant for another time...i saw a corn products tank car the other day while stopped at a road grade crossing and though "that is a lot of liquid in there" and then i thought about how much water it takes to grow corn ( two acre feet ) and i began to wonder how much water a tank car represented so i did some research into it and some ciphering...this is what i came up with...in 2016 500 million tons of corn were converted into high fructose corn syrup,,,that is 1,000,000,000,000 pounds of corn...at 56 pounds a bushel that works out to 1,857,128,571 bushels...that 500 million tons of corn produced 8.5 million tons of hfcs...at a weight of 11.75 pounds per gallon that works out to 1,446,808,511 gallons...at two acre feet to grow 200 bushels per acre it comes out to 3260 gallons of water per bushel and hfce uses 1.283 bushels per gallon so it takes 4182.5 gallons of water to produce one gallon of hfcs...a standard rail tank car holds 19500 gallons ( 74,195 tank cars of hfcs were produced in 2016 )...so...81.560,310 gallons of water per tank cat...when you export grain you export water...that mountain dew has a lot of water in it too.

slow spring...

...in places anyway..there are new spuds up in the nursery...

and the mashua is doing well...

since we last had a look at it forty-three (!) days ago, the yacon has made significant vertical progress...

Jean's puddle wheat is still green...it is also still not showing any signs of producing ears...we are hoping fro a break in the weather ( march has been stubbornly cold so far ) so we can get it out into some fresh air and sunshine and see what ( if any ) rejuvenative effect that may have...

while some teosinte has failed there are still five plants going strong...

this plant has three ears up and running...and another has two...

while this very different looking teosinte plant ( plant morphology is obviously complex beyond my limited [ albeit now expanded] experience...i wouldn't have called this teosinte until i saw that ear ) has produced an ear...silks and all...so it wasn't a rouge in the seed i got from the usda..it is the real thing...

the huskless ear on another plant has lost some seeds and i am waiting to see how the remainder might mature...

as i mentioned, it has been a cold month...the wheat i planted a week ago, while it is showing signs of beginning to move has not germinated yet...there is no asparagus up...either here or on campus...so at the moment the only thing moving outside 9 in vegetable terms ) are the hardiest of the cold hardy, the ramps...

the crocuses do not fear the cold either.

five varieties

it's march...time to plant spring wheat...so i turned in eighty pounds of compost...and raked the bed half way level ( the unturned patch in the corner is home to a volunteer spud...and there is a volunteer onion up in there too ) and began to plant...

the five varieties of wheat i am planting in this bed are, hard red which i have an ample supply from last season's crop...

dwarf syrian...

and pacific blue stem, both of which also originated from last season's crop...

the ancient emmer wheat...

and the equally ancient einkorn which i finally found a supplier for ( people seem loathe to part with this seed )

i broadcast the seed into its specific area...

raked the seed in to a depth of a quarter inch or so by hand...

and marked the locations with stakes...now we wait...the seeds know what to do..next stop, critter net and bird tape...as needed.