august thirty-first

it is the last day of august and things are moving along out back and in the mobile garden...the carolina horse nettle is blooming away and more buds are forming so i have hopes of fruits before frost ( and a look at why it is called "nettle" )...

spud row shows definite signs of finishing up...

the concord grapes in the catalpa tree are ripening...harvest very soon...

peppers are maturing...

there are definite seeds afoot in the ears on the zea mays mexicana...

and the largest plant in the row has two tillers that have keeled over in true zea fashion to spread seed away from the parent plant...we will be letting these go unharvested over the autumn and will see if, perhaps, they will germinate in spring...expectations are low here ( mine anyway )...doesn't mean we won't have a look at what happens...even if it isn't much...

aerial bulbs that have "walked" from the egyptian walking onions have begun to sprout...rooting in for winter...

out in the truck bed the new york import i planted a few days ago is doing well and has begun the significant step of producing a new leaf...there may be a berry truck yet...

and the bush bean back there is continuing to produce as well...another bean had sprouted from a blossom...the all natural truck bed lives on...

the bees are busy as well as they prepare for the winter...

and here's one of the girls putting the final touches on another tube of leaf cutter bee cocoons in the bee house...

and showing us why they are called leaf cutters...then full tubes...bess next season...nest up...a trip to campus tomorrow.

nascent autumn

it may bo only the twenty-sixth of august but the weather is redolent of autumn with temperatures in the upper sixties ( fahrenheit ) and two tenths of an inch of rain with more forecast it seems more like latter september...and the population around the yard, for the most part, is showing it...

ears of maize to feed the squirrels are popping out al over the corn patches...

there are silks and ears emerging on the zea mays mexicana as well...fortunately of no interest to the squirrels...

concord grapes are ripening on the vines in the fir and catalpa trees...

the jerusalem artichokes are teeming with their late august blooms...

i am afraid the weather is going to take the moxie right out of the girls...a sad but seemingly necessary cycle...they have worked very hard and there are filled tubes in the bee house as proof of their efforts...another generation in the next summer...

other denizens of the yard ( and associated places ) seem to be ignoring the signals...being both a nightshade and a "weed" the carolina horse nettle ( safely containerized ) in my yard may just be acting normally in blooming at this late date...we will be seeing how long fruits take to appear...there is distance between now and the first frost...they may know what they are doing...

the native berries continue...and will continue until it frosts...to produce...

and while we are talking berries, remember the new york wild strawberry i planted in my truck five days ago?

it has adapted well and is showing good growth...

and you can tell it likes the neighborhood because there's a stolon going out to create a daughter which come to her own conclusions about reproducing before winter...

down at the crown i find this new growth which i am uncertain about...new stem and leaf? new stolon? we will see in a few days...

not to be outdone the berry's truck bed mate had brought forth a new bloom and has six more buds i counted today...contrary currents all headed fro the same season...the last seasonal gasp of relentless dna.

dry...wet...dry

when i got to the garden after work and took a hoe to my bed i found the soil as dry as it was two weeks ago...

the maize leaves were curled from transpiration ( aka corn sweat ) which leaves me thinking this garden hasn't seen water since the last rain which was five days ago...so i watered...and then took a look around...

from the east side the corn row looks okay...however it is clear that something has been at the west side since last sunday...

the zea mays mexicana down at the south end still has any number of exposed seeds going on...

this week though there are distinct ears emerging from the stems...looking like the forerunners of their descendants...silks and all...

and finally, in my bed, the hungarian hot pepper that was bereft of peppers last week has two going on today...coll for a hot pepper...

wandering around i see that despite the official emphasis on "stewardship" the garden was not only bone dry, parts are looking downright unkempt...not that i am averse to some unstructured planting mind...nature does not plant in straight rows, people do...and open ground is an invitation to all sorts of troubles well beyond what are termed "weeds"...so i don't find this bed unsightly so much as i am having difficulty discerning what's crop and what's "native plant"...i see barnyard grass and fox tail and lamb's quarters...about the only thing i don't see is carolina horse nettle...

not to worry however...there are still impressive specimens of that all over the west end of the garden...blooming away...fruits soon enough...and...more horse nettle...

we will end on a very positive note though...while photographing sunflowers i found a bevy of leaf cutters and one of them held still long enough for some actual photos to be had...never be unhappy to see a bee...like earthworms, they are necessary.