fields and yard

we got a couple of tenths of an inch of rain overnight and into this morning which brings the july total in my yard to 2.35"...it has been warm here as well...not unusual for july...

both of which have the dense yellow #2 in the fields growing so quickly you can almost perceive it..

planted only a couple of inches apart...( although you can see here the planter skipped a bit and left about a foot unoccupied towards the right of the photo )...

and thirty-six inch spacing between rows is long gone...if these are more than eighteen inches apart i will be eating my hat with no salt...they are making the fields denser and denser with corn anymore...still...it is illusory...most of the field is bare soil...although there has been an increase in no till planting...particularly in beans hereabouts lately...any way you look at it this a lot of corn...

there's maize ( heirloom flints I in my yard as well...it is on the left here...that is teosinte on the right...

and it has enjoyed fair growth in the summer weather as well...

the maize has flowered and there are ears coming along...

the teosinte is flowering as well however i have not seen any signs of silks just yet...

the jerusalem artichokes are as relentless as ever...however...

a gourd vine has taken serious hold among them...my presumption is that they are of near equal stubbornness and so detente will ensue rather than a struggle...

gourd flowered have been fertilized and gourds are underway...

as are countless zucchini...

the one ramp that bloomed has been fertilized as well...there will be limited seed this season...

there are tomatoes...

and hot banana and jalepeno peppers...

the chinese yam vine is beginning to produce aerial bulbs...

while the ones on the egyptian walking onions are about ready to walk...

the field peas i planted as a cover crop in the grain beds have irrupted...

as the grapes and mulberries move towards fruition...

and the elm tree back by the alley hosts a colony of dryad's saddles...we are in the middle of a season that is booming along robustly ( and we haven't really touched on spuds, berries, and "ferny" asparagus )...verdant july everywhere i look...been reading about drought and crop failures in guatemala...how lucky can i be? and why is that?

bed six on july twenty-first

bed six looks reasonably verdant today...peas, peppers, tomatoes are all coming along...

the maize looks like it could be part of a curry landscape...

and there are a fair number of ears coming along...

there are healthy bean plants at the base of the maize...

and there are vines on the cornstalks...however, i find no beans...which doesn't mean something else didn't find them first...still...disappointing...

spud corner is looking robust...

and, while there is an abundance of nightshade blooms there, another disappointment is the apparent dearth, or lack, of potato fruits...spuds are picky about when they produce their seeds and this year does not seem a banner year...the vagaries of the garden.

field peas

this past tuesday i harvested the beds of winter wheat and rye...both grains have fragile stalks ( as evidenced by the pounding they took from the rain ) which makes it difficult to weed and so, in addition to the volunteer potatoes, both beds have an assortment of native plants that have been left behind...rather than let them take the beds over i decided to plant field peas as a short term cover crop...

the peas arrived int today's mail...so...

i went out and dug the beds...

carefully working around the viney volunteers...

and broadcast the seed as thickly as the amount i purchased would allow...these will be turned under in september when i replant the grain beds for next season...

we had an inch of rain overnight so this morning...before the mail arrived, i wandered out into industrial agriculture to see what, if any , impact it had...

i did find some standing water...

and a few places where water had obviously damaged crops ( including one that neatly illustrates the corn/soy bean monoculture that pretty much is industrial agriculture hereabouts )...but not that many...

and the drainage ditches were not exactly filled to overflowing...which has me thinking that the rain was more "locally heavy" in my yard than down south...or that the crops are well enough established and it has been dry enough that the rain soaked in rather than pooled on the surface...or a combination of both...i don't have rain gauges scattered around the fields ( although that might make an interesting project if i could find a cooperative farmer ) so i have no idea what might be the case...just conjecture to this point.

a couple of harvests

the winter wheat and rye have taken something of a pounding from the weather in the last few weeks...

that has not stopped them from ripening...and since it has been dry for a few days...

i decided it was a viable time for a harvest...so i cut the grain...

and tied it into sheaves...

the wheat sheaves are shorter than last season because of the drubbing...however they are no less full...and there is one more of them this season because ( since we are dealing with thirty-two square foot beds ) i planted more square footage in wheat than rye this year since my bread-making experience has taught me rye bread really does not use that much rye flour, so it made sense to go heavier on the wheat...after i stacked the sheaves i went back and collected the loose ears of wheat and rye to use as seed in september...i may augment those with some purchased organic seed...i also purchased some field peas to plant as a cover crop for a few weeks until i turn them under for the next grain planting...

i had planted potatoes in these beds a few years ago...this is the end of the beds' third season of growing grain...and i seem unable to escape having volunteer potatoes in them every year...leggy and not very productive ( although obviously capable of setting tubers to perpetuate the beds' nightshade population ) they seem destined to be part of the grain landscape here...so be it...i will dig them when they die back and i will doubtlessly miss tubers...and on the subject of tubers...

these two container spuds had clearly finished so i pulled them...

and got a pound of michigan blues and red pontiacs...the small ones will go in the seed bin and the larger will end up as part of someone's meal...lunch from the back yard.