truck bed update

the bean and the chamomile in the bed of my truck have long since finished the season...the ten degree ( fahrenheit ) low we had earlier in the month saw to that...when i moved the layer of maple leaves that had fallen from the trees aside i found that the new york import strawberry i dug up and transplanted to the bed of my truck to keep the bean company eighty-six days ago has not been idle..and seems to be still in action...

the mother of them all is looking healthy...obviously enough sunlight has penetrated the leaf litter...

she has produced three daughters...including one that is fairly recent...

the two elder daughters have given her three granddaughters...

who have, in turn, begat two great granddaughters...

and thoes girls have each contributed a gret great granddaughter...one of which is just taking root this late in the season...bean and cham's descendants will hear stories of their forebearers next season from multiple sources...the populations grows...i knew it would...one wonders if there is enough room in the truck.

colors

it is november nineteenth and some nighttime lows have already been some twenty degrees below freezing...so any reasonable person would expect the tomatoes to be long gone...and they would be correct...an autumn brown is the hue today...

the teocintli is done as well...

some ears are empty...

some are in the process of shattering...

and some are splitting open in preparation...

i brought in a few late season ears that had not split open yet ( i am letting the shattered and split ones go in their natural cycle to see if it will reseed itself in this climate )...

they rendered some plausibly mature seed and some fairly green ones as well...brown and green in microcosm...and while we are talking green...

the winter wheat has lost no chlorophyll...there are cold hardy folks out there

neither have the egyptian walking onions that are headed into their second season...

nor have the aerial bulbs which have "walked" and are sprouting, rooting, and doing their best to burrow into the soil for winter...

the leaves on the new york import strawberries are still verdant...they will not be intimidated by winter...and while beries are the focus...

even at this late date the native berries have still been trying to produce berries...i am skeptical that there is anything to pollinate these lonely blossoms who are admittedly looking rough...still...don't tell me dna isn't relentless...

we should not think ourselves burdened with the limited pallet of green and brown though...there are other blooms holding on to vestiges of more vibrant days...

and the hawthorn berries are inviting the birds.

moving day

"little guy" or l g to the initiated is a rescue maple tree i pretty much stole from a cornfield at a good friend's behest to keep him from being done in by the combine...potted in my back yard he has prospered the past three years and this autumn it was clearly tine to move him to a larger home until a permanent residence can be procured...

knowing this was coming i obtained a larger container earlier this year and today i took it to the north side of the house and drilled sufficient drainage holes...

i added a mixture of cow manure compost and seed starting mix ( to act as a filler to help keep the compost from compacting ) and went to get little guy...

the extraction was more difficult than i had anticipated...

because he was reasonably pot bound...

which is why his new home is deeper and bigger in diameter...

i loosened the soil around his roots so they would know they could move around come spring...

put him in his new home and finished the fill with a straight shot of compost to feed the growing boy next season...

i had been gathering leaves to mulch the ramp bed and kept going while i was at it...

so that he and the ramps have a snug blanket of maple, mulberry, and catalpa leaves...

that done i took the bee house ( in its parasite proof mesh bag ) and all the hard work the girls did this past summer to my daughter and son's-in-law unheated garage to winter over and hatch out in the back yard next june...more season's end chores accomplished...i'm taking the rest of the day off.

another ending ( almost )

it has been cold...actually unseasonably cold for this early in november...

a bit over two weeks ago the bees were still busily mugging the marigolds out front...

things have changed...out back as well...

the cold has induced the northern tepehaun teocintli ears to open and begin to shatter even though the bulk of the seed is still green...

i have collected some however i am skeptical of its viability...

the zea mays mexicana began to shatter long before any cold settled in...

and there are still a multiplicity of green ears on those plants as well...

still, even this late they are producing mature seed...so i will be going over the ears for a bit yet (and hence the "almost" in the header ) to add as many as possible to the seven hundred or so seeds i have already brought in...things are slowing out there...i doubt they will stop completely...more as it comes up.