predation and survivors

stumpy is basking in almost early spring temperatures..and, while winter is winding down the forecast says we are not clear yet and we will elaborate on that directly...

the winter rye and wheat beds are nicely green...

the rye has actually come through the past two winters ( in a small patch rather than a full bed...that is, however, where the seed for this came from ) just fine and this winter seems no exception...

it was the wheat that suffered a catastrophe winter before last...not so far this year although there are lows in the lower teen forecast for the coming week so we aren't exactly home free just yet...hopes are higher than past years though...we may have ears in june yet...

the new york imports and the local variety that are out in and around the east bed ( actually the locals are all over the yard ) are green and happily photosynthesizing out in the sunshine today...cold hardy little plants....

and down in the shadows the aerial bulbs the egyptian walking onions deposited last autumn are defiant of the cold as well...

it's not all sweetness and light out there though...i am thinking something has been browsing the onion shoots...

the on again off again cold has potholed the roads and allowed something to burrow into the jerusalem artichoke bed in search of inulin...the assumption is, whatever the culprit, it will be back...

that bare spot in the south bed used to be two healthy and upright new york wild strawberry plants...the second photo is what's left after some fairly serious predation..which does not please me...i am fingering bunnies here...it's been something of a tough winter...still...

the good news is there are a multiplicity of daughter plants which will send out more stolons soon enough...the berry patch will carry on...the onions will put out new and more pungent, less attractive shoots...and the jerusalem artichokes just don't care...it will take more than a few marauding raccoons to do them in...they are natives and this is just as much their turf and any predators...there will be yellow blooms in august.

thirty-five

nature has its own timetable and these four bisons and four blues are not going to last a lot longer in air...i am the one who pulled them out of the ground last year which makes me the responsible party whether i had plans for growing them indoors or not...so..let the rearranging begin...

first the three spuds i planted twenty-four days ago had to be moved...they had pretty much outgrown the peat pots anyway...ot was time..so they moved into five gallon containers...

the bisons went into peat pots and , since i shared out my peat pot stash with other gardeners, the blues were left to make do with what was around the plant room...

this new expansion necessitated the lighting of another light..and still there is a good deal of crowding going on...a quick census reveals twelve wheat plants ( puddles left a legacy capable of producing many many children )...three onions...three garlic plants...three mashua plants...one yacon...one viny houseplant i put down there because it was dying in the winter sunlight upstairs...and now twelve spuds...april cannot get here quickly enough for these.

into the void

puddles' kids are acting just like mom did last winter..it must be genetic...

the yacon and mashua are evincing new growth...

and the january spud is happily filling its side of the container...

six days ago the spud on the left in this photo...

looked like this...

and the one on the right had this look about it...there has been progress here...

cohabiting with garlic hasn't harmed this spud over the past week either...i am uncertain as to whether it helped...but i don't see a need to shuffle the population around either...

and now we move on into the post-organic arena...there was a bag of "america's #1 finger hat" aka bugles lying about...a close personal friend...and big fan of puddles and the kids...called it a "colorful bag" which is a true statement...colorful and very busy with the promise of fun ( what else could a "finger hat" be but fun? )...someof us are killjoys however andf i just had to take a look at the nutritional ( or, in this case, non-nutritional ) label...

there's fat..but no trans fat or cholesterol..okay...also more salt than you can shake a stick at...a touch of protein and barely discernible vitamin d, calcium, iron or potassium...one would presume there would be some nutritional value to something that is a "crispy corn snack"...a supposition until you take a shufti at the bottom of the label where it boldly states "ingredients: DEGERMED YELLOW CORN MEAL...and the nutritional mystery is solved...general mills removed it...probably because it complicated the process of extrusion...and to add insult to injury the very bottom of the label tells us we are eating gmo...the fine print says "learn more at ask.general mills.com"...any of you who has the desire can go there...i do not especially care to be propagandized at the moment...maybe later

expansion and progression

for as much as things change down in the basement there is still continuity...puddles' kids for instance...still green..still leggy...still looking remarkably like mom...and they continue to send up new sprouts that fall over...

the yacon is evincing new growth...albeit slowly...slow is what yacon does...and the cohabiting mashua has vines everywhere...

the two mashua plants across the room continue to fill the trellises and vine over the sides of their containers as well...

the garlic is getting leggy too...there will have to be some rearranging of location and lighting soon...

all three of the spuds i planted eleven days ago and that are the reason the season is "expanded" have now deployed leaves...i am assuming there are roots involved as well...more containers and rearranging to compound the complexity of limited space and lighting ( there was a reason i wanted a "simple" season down there...desire and intention are often frustrated )..it is the way of things..added complexity and increased energy always attend expansion...

and thirty-eight days into its season the spud i planted in january is a green and robust nightshade that needs to be back filled a bit more...not "leggy" in the least...compact and leafy...both indications of the possibility of good tuber production...we will see in a couple of months...although these are blue potatoes which are notorious ( in my experience ) for just going on and on...we may need to intervene eventually...as if we haven't already.

cold again

it's a skosh warmer than the nine or so ( fahrenheit ) degrees it got down to last night...

and stumpy and friends tell me there is a dusting of snow falling this morning...

that this is inadequate for insulating the grains is immaterial since the temperatures here are forecast to yo-yo between above and blow freezing with a mixture of snow and/or rain over the next ten days...snow doesn't matter much at the moment...the thaw of the past week is what has had an impact over the last two nights or so..and, while that impact has not been devastating, it did give a fair indication of what long term exposure to temperatures that cold can do...

a few days ago, at the height of the thaw, the rye was very green...

it has begun to lose chlorophyll in the cold and, unlike the locust trees in the background, it isn't being stored in the dormanr roots...

the wheat...

is suffering the same effect..if we do not have another round of sub zero temperatures the crops will likely be alright and produce some grain...just possibly not as much...winter will begin ( actually has begun ) to wane here...the snow that fell fell in enough quantity and time to do what was needed..i did not pry up the winter vetch and what snow there is to have a look at the egyptian walking onion's nests of rooting aerial bulbs...perhaps later in the week wern things are warmer.