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.