change

yesterday there was snow on the teocintli...

today it's long gone...

and the snow that was on the winter rye...

has been replaced by some of the three quarters of an inch of rain that has fallen here so far today ( once again leaving the winter wheat and rye without snow cover of any sort )...

rain because it is the degrees above freezing today...a shade above "average" and nowhere near either record...middling kind of data...

i took out the bamboo i had used to support the toecintli and it immediately fell over..which is what it wanted to do all along which is why i interfered with the bamboo in the first place...there are still seeds in some of those ears i purposely left out as i harvested...i am uncertain of the viability...however it would be gratifying to have some naturally germinated grasses next spring...we will see..we will not get our hopes up...

we do have fine hopes for the egyptian walking onions that are sheltering under the winter vetch though...they continue to work on producing shoots and on taking root...december or not...winter has been different the past few years with december being a cold month and then the new year seeing a gradual warming into a fairly early spring...this year the month seems indecisive and it is over without any sort of real accumulation of snow...the few there have been have all been less than an inch and what there is ahead is unseen in terms of precipitation..so the end of the year finds the yard at work on next year...nothing odd in that...if you look closely enough it never really stops...there will be green out there all winter and into spring..the onions and berries find it necessary.

all by page twelve

"this reverence of, or indeed worship of, bread is strange to us, being accustomed to a post-industrial diet which is unique in lacking a basic carbohydrate staple." sophie d. coe in "america's first cuisines"...what? wait...if this is true i cannot imagine why there ia all that bread in the local supermarket...i mean the one i frequent has an entire aisle of bread...white, honey wheat, rye, five grain, whole grain, potato, oat meal, cinnamon raisin, dinner rolls, hamburger buns, and some i am sure i missed...then there's all that pasta down the store...and rice...and spuds...i am inclined to call sophie on this one...she is clearly confused by diet gurus and paleolithic mavens...but hold on...it gets worse...at least for me..and i will not hesitate to elaborate my misgivings..."there have been modern efforts to eat teosinte. during the great spurt of interest in teosinte in the 1880, when an effort was being made to combine the perennial character of teosinte with the productivity of maize, thomas murrey published a little book called "salads and shoots", in which he recommended the use of young shoots of teosinte as a salad greens. alas, his book, which smells more of the library than the kitchen, could not overcome the fact that teosinte is adapted to growing in the short days of the tropics, does not do well in the long days of a temperate summer, and will not set seed here."...sophie, my back yard says you are deeply mistaken here...indiana is in the temperate zone...acres of dense yellow #2 grow here...and so does teocintli if you plant it...

by august of this past year i had a stand of teocintli with two varieties going strong...the standard zea mexicana grown from seed provided by an indulgent usda and northern tepehaun grown from seed produced in my yard last year...

the zea mexicana produced the standard male flower and ears with female tassels ...

by that same august the ears had matured...

and i harvested hundreds of mature seeds...

the northern tepehuan has something of a longer season, however it too produced flowers, ears, and tassels and by october had produced ears of mature seed...

a more prolific producer of ears, the northern tepehaun provided many hundreds of seeds in varying stages of maturity...there will be test germinations soon to see how viable this year's crop is...there have been multiple years of seed production out back..it is true that the plants do not begin to produce ears and set seed until the days shorten...the longer day length does not prevent their reproduction...sophie is mistaken...we will continue to read..after the first twelve pages we will be somewhat more critical in it

winter...

it's the first day of winter and there are snow flurries in the air...the ambient air temperature and the ground are too warm for any accumulation...

the soil is being watered though...and so are the leaves...i don't see anyone here complaining about that...

the markers along the annual/perennial divide haven't changed much...the teocintli ears are still shattering, even if some seed is holding on tenaciously...

while the perennial activity i have already noted is progressing...the egyptian walking onions continue to sprout and root in the shelter of the winter vetch...

and the berries are still carrying on robust photosynthesis...a closer look has also shown me that they have provided another line of evidence to show that activity has not ground to a halt, winter and snow flurries non withstanding...

both the indigenous...

and the imports from new york are producing are growth leaves moving into late december...plants are as opportunistic as any other living thing...work on colonizing the bed continues and probably will until there is sufficient snow cover and cold to call a halt to it...hasn't happened yet and there are no real signs of it in the forecasts...

the artificial season in the basement doesn't know ( or care ) that it is the first day of winter...the onions cohabiting with puddles' kids are just as leggy as the wheat..and just as green...

yacon and mashua are the other set of cohabitants down there...the mashua has begun to use the yacon as a trellis...new growth is not confined to the yard...

all the mashua is evincing good, if slow, new growth and there is at least hope for tubers for spring planting out doors...enabling another season of learning about this plant and how to meet its needs..."the lost crops of the incas" had been of some, if limited, help in this...the empirical will have to take up the slack.

a bit more photosynthesis

it is another unseasonably warm december day here...people are remarking how "nice" the weather is while i am feeling uncomfortably unnatural...no that december photosynthesis is unnatural...plants..particularly the berries and winter vetch, wheat, and rye..like to stay green and soak up sun on favorable days all winter...and clearly the onions are no slouches here...

tell me that's not new growth...

and the very green winter vetch on the south side of the house...

is giving aid and comfort to some egyptian walking onion aerial bulbs that have come to rest and begun to root...the season does go on...

december photosynthesis

i find it rather mild temperature wise for mid december in my back yard...some of the plants are finding it so as well...others not so much so...

the winter rye is looking green and grassy...

and all seems well in the wheat bed next door...

the asparagus is standing in clear opposition tot hat..it is done and that's that..it's my back yard and not the campus garden so i will cut this back sometime in march to help the new growth break surface...

both the local variety of berries and the new york imports are taking advantage of the sunshine to expand and consolidate their territories...never waste a sunny day...

and it seems that this egyptian walking onion finds december sunshine as congenial to new growth as any other...

most of the teocintli ears i left unharvested have shattered...

still there are some seeds hanging around...i am less than sanguine about another generation coming from these...more likely they will come from seed i have harvested and will test germinate in april...i would say that the annual/perennial line marked the difference between green and brown if asparagus were not a perennial...exceptions to everything...irregardless...i don't see any green annuals.