the maize patch out back is loaded down with bean vines that are causing the stalks to bend down at the top...this has not stopped them from moving forward with hat they grew to do...
and, unlike the squirrel ravaged maize in the community garden...
some of the untouched ears out back are finishing up...
the survival of the dense yellow #2 is no surprise...the gleaners skip it in the fields ( and so bean fields are festooned with volunteer corn )...leaving it be is a habit in the wild...it looks as if there has been some cross pollination going on with the heirloom maize ( which, with a longer season, is not finished yet )...colorful kernels sprinkled in with the yellow...i believe i will save them for seed just to see what turns up next season...
across the yard the northern tepehuan teosinte is churning out flowers and support roots...no ears yet though..and probably not til next month...if the weather holds...
meanwhile the zea mays mexicana has a lot of green seed showing...
and more than a few ears that have finished up and shattered...the stalks with shattered ears would be laying down on the ground now, spreading the seed away from the parent plant...if i hadn't forced them to stand up with bamboos and twine...
so i could collect what mature seed i could as the ears mature...one eighth of an ounce so far...eighty-six dark and mature seeds..i am seriously hoping for another warm october so i can collect some viable seed from the northern tepehuan... ( those plants are a second generation grown from seed i harvested in my yard last year )...i cannot find the commercially available anymore and the usda does not seem to have any..i have a supply in the freezer so an early frost wouldn't be a tragedy...still..i would like more..i am a bit greedy about teosinte.
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