waiting for maize

when i got to campus this morning i was greeted by some prostrate asparagus...

so i picked it up...and put in more support...while i was doing so i noticed the plants had begun to flower...that is fine...a bumper crop of asparagus seed would not be a bad thing to have...

i also noticed four volunteer potatoes up and running in the bed behind the asparagus...obviously some were missed in last autumn's harvest...these should be done by august if anyone is interested...

that done i moved over to my bed where i found a smattering of jerusalem artichokes up after last week's cull...

so i dug the whole bed ( ther will be no more digging after today...only yanking sunchokes out by the roots [if possible] ...the reasons will be obvious in just a minute ) where i found...

where i found a healthy population of earth worms ( always a happy event )...

and twenty-six more tubers ( numerologists stay tuned...there is significance in that number which will be revealed shortly...you need to know )

after i culled the bed i created a compost hill along the north side of the bed...

and i planted some corn seed i received from the usda and had soaked in water overnight spaced out along the hill about a foot apart...buffalo bird woman would have called foul and told me i was planting "smells itself' corn far too close together...this isn't buffalo bird woman's corn however...it is "improved hybrid" corn...i am not certain whether this is sweet or field corn ( i am inclined towards field since it's federal corn ) however we will judge by the squirrels..if they nail every ear you can be sure it was sweet corn...if they won't touch it it will be all starch field corn..call it a wildlife experiment...

i did also plant some heirloom flint corn...a couple of reds and a couple of blues...these i spread out as buffalo bird woman would have it because they are not "improved" and they want their space...

i also planted a bell pepper and an heirloom tomato...and called it a day on my bed...when the corn gets to be around ten or twelve inches tall i will be planting pole beans at the base of the stalks to allow the beans to vine on the corn...two thirds of the "three sisters"...

when i got to the corner bed it evinced a much smaller irruption of jerusalem artichokes than last week and a dig produced only fifty-two tubers ( fifty-two...twenty-six...exactly double the number of tubers that i found in my bed? omens? foreshadowings? or just numbers? ) ...doubtless i will find more later this week

on a final, climate change, note...the solanum family brute carolina horse nettle has cropped its spiky head up in the garden again...it is a non-native perennial native to the southeastern states ( hence the carolina ) which should not have overwintered here...it has however and it is deeply rooted and probably here to stay...i wonder how bad the japanese beetles will be this year...stock up on neem oil.