thirtieth of march out back

the winter rye and wheat passed the cold weather above ground...they pulled through nicely and are looking very green and working on tillering and producing new leaves...

the egyptian walking onions were above ground all winter as well...i will admit to being a bit startled about how many walked and how far...there are quite a few out there...no shortage of onions down the road...

the onions' cousins, the ramps, spent their winter below ground and have begun to emerge and are addressing early spring in various stages of development...we will see how the wild leek season goes and i will be leaving a much denser leaf mulch on the bed once they have all emerged in an effort to keep the forest floor illusion strong for them...

the alfalfa is exhibiting new growth as well...it will be up and running with blooms when the alfalfa leaf cutter bees arrive in june...pollen and nesting material for the bees...and more alfalfa for the alfalfa...and the bees will helpf the tomatoes and beans and zucchini along as well...spiffy...

and if that were not enough evidence of spring out back, the daffodils are another strong line of evidence...

the basement spuds are still booming along...although they should finish soon...

the other day ( say a week ) while i was rooting around in a bin, i found a couple of tacna variety spuds that were in dire need of planting...so i did...and, seemingly, i was in time since they have both greened up and one is starting to leaf...these will be going outside next month into containers to begin the outdoor spud season...more movement...and in a timely fashion...work to focus on.

calling it spring

plague or not it is spring and time to start...

it is the end of march and high time to plant spring wheat...einkorn has tough little husks so winnowing some to plant... to plant took a few minutes...i was successful and the ancient wheat is in a container and i planted some black tip wheat as well...emmer and more einkorn are in the works...

the winter wheat and rye out in the beds continues to green and is looking like it will do fine this year...at least that is the indication to this point...

no word from the asparagus just yet...however a berry has come calling for the season...one surmises that the radical difference in root depth will allow congenial cohabitation...

fancy yellow flowers will be here any time now...

and there are stirrings in the ramp bed..spring is on...time to get things going.

soggy and erosive

i have remarked that it has been a rainy winter and an inch of rain over the past three days has done little to dry the fields hereabouts...it is wet and muddy out there...

surveying the fields, i checked up on some erosion points that have been in existence for a number of years and found them active still...

this one i discovered last year i believe and it is still slowly washing the edge of the field down to the road...

and some jaunts down county roads i hadn't been on before revealed some that have clearly been established for a while and which had escaped notice until today...one presumes there are more and that, while the topsoil here is deep, the soil is not inexhaustible...even though these are not massive cuts in the fields they are a sign that soil conservation could use some tweaking..it is only the latter part of march and the planting season is still a few months away and climate/weather is only predictable to a less than exact point...still i am wondering if this is the beginning of another sodden spring much like last year's around these parts...and that had a significant impact with fields still overgrown after laying fallow last season...we will keep a weather eye out and track rainfall in the yard...and if we get ten inches of rain this coming may i will let you know.

rain and distempers

it is march and we had half an inch of rain yesterday and there is more forecast...that it rained in march here is no surprise...that there has been 5.8 inches of rain since january first is...there was a significant lack of snow...the most i recorded here was about two inches and it all melted quickly...

fortunately there was not extreme cold to go with that lack of snow so the winter wheat and rye seem to have come through the dormant season in good shape...they will fill in soon enough...

there will be daffodils in a week or two and that is a sure sign winter is waning...there are other stirrings as well...

if anything the onions are greener...

and there is good new growth in the berry patch...no news from the ramps or asparagus just yet..and in asparagus terms that might not be bad since corona virus has even tainted the garden...not here mind you..the yard is fine...and so, i imagine, is the community garden on campus...except the campus is closed ( the "garden stewardship orientation" has become a "web/phone conference"...i am inclined to skip that ) and i am uncertain if i can actually be physically in the garden to uncover the asparagus there...one supposes since it is in the open air there would be little chance of contagion...bureaucrats are bureaucrats however and they may be rigidly authoritarian in their fears...one supposes a call to the campus police might clear questions up...we will see...

there are no viruses among the spuds under the lights in the basement...they are green and so robust that a couple look more like bushes than spuds ( and will produce disappointing tubers...if any at all...the scrawnier ones may have better production tuber-wise )...they should be finishing up soon and one hopes for "drops"...small tubers just to drop into the soil outdoors in a month or so...things are rumbling to life out there and there will be many more plantings...i have seed...they will grow...they know what to do.

different sort of composting ( for me anyway )

i have a compost bin and tumbler out back that i have used for a number of years to generate compost so it isn't entirely foreign to me...

recently. however, a source of horse manure has become available to me and this is a project of a different color since it is a new process ( although not that much different )...

so, using materials on hand, i cobbled ( and cobbled is the only adjective to describe it ) together a sort of bin..if this goes well we will invest time and lumber in a more worthy bin...for now we are being cheap...or frugal...your call...

after the bin had progressed to the point it looked as if it might stay up i laid down a layer of straw...

then a layer of manure topped with some compost from a bin just to get things sttarted...

a process i repeated until the "bin" was full...

the compost from the bin was moist and the manure seemed relatively "fresh" so i did not moisten the pile...there is rain in the forecast however, so i covered it with a tarp so it does not become sodden...tomorrow i will begin turning the pile daily for a while until i get a handle on the process...if this works out the community garden may be as fertile as the yard...

i would call that forecast rain a harbinger of a nascent spring if it hadn't been raining here all winter...there are growing signs of spring out there though...the strawberries are greening up...

and the daffodils are moving along...

i can even see some buds.