drainage

august is traditionally fairly warm around here and today was no exception...there have been clouds in the sky but no rain i am aware of in the past sixteen days...

so with temperatures in the upper eighties and low nineties ( farhenheit )and no rain for a couple of weeks i would have expected to see some leaves curled from transpiration out there...but i found none that i could see...another of monsanto's innovations one supposed ( or bayers )...

the beans are verdant and unstressed ( seemingly ) as well...and there's an example of the bi-polar industrial monoculture they grow here...

i haven't a clue what was in this field...however the cloud of dust behind the tractor is a fair indication of how dry it is and how vulnerable to wind and ( hopefully ) eventual rain erosion the topsoil is...

i do know what's in this field and drainage tile in this quantity in a field that has been fallow all season is likely a sign that this field will be growing some sort of building soon...no signs telling me what to expect, but dense yellow #2 doesn't need this much drainage...

keeping with the zea motif...the teosinte out back has ears coming along well and seeds are beginning to be visible through the husks...don't think i am not pleased...and there is no leaf curl here...these are heirloom plants not industrial mutants...i am watering them...there's other stuff going on...we can leave that for another post...

personally i think i am going to go look for more dragonflies...that season is getting shorter too.

a few more signs of autumn approaching

even at a distance the corn row in bed six at the community garden tells me the season is beginning to wind down...

i will be bringing ears of flint corn home next trip out...

tomatoes are ripening...i pulled in almost a full five gallon bucket today and it looks like there will be a couple more before they're done...

spuds i planted in may are dying back...

today i harvested some german butterballs and a few elmer's blues...

oddly enough ( or, perhaps, just naturally ) the bean vines that had done little have begun to bloom and produce in the past two weeks...there may be significant beans from the second sister yet which would be pleasing...

for those of you not attuned to teosinte it may be time to hit the "next blog" button at the top because one of the surest signs of oncoming fall in my yard is a proliferation of teosinte ears and that is where we are...

the stands of zea are robust...i am hoping for as good a seed season as last year was...hoping for better would be greedy.

threshing, winnowing, and roaming the yard

i harvested the wheat in my yard thirty-seven days ago...and since i have a few days off i felt the time had come to begin processing it...so i began to cut the ears of the straw...

i took the first one hundred and fifty ears...

and put them in a burlap bag...and, instead of using a grain flail or having the oxen walk on the ears in the threshing room...

i set the bag on a cinder block and whacked it with a stick...

until the grain had separated from the ears and most of the husks had come off...

no matter what day i choose to do this there never seems to be enough of a breeze to winnow the grain with so i brought one of the fans i use to ventilate the plant room in winter up and used it to winnow the grain by pouring it between tow containers in front of the fan until the chaff had blown away...

those ears rendered almost a quarter cup of "berries" which should mill to about a half cup of flour...

there is no uniformity of production in wheat, much less nature...

so i will simply have to process the remaining one thousand one hundred and thirty ears ( yes i counted ) to see how much flour the harvest will yield...stay tuned if interested...

elsewhere out back, tomatoes, jalepenos, and hot banana peppers are ripening...hot sauce?

in herb terms the borage and parsley are booming along...

sun flowers and their cousins the jerusalem artichokes are blooming away...

and the sunchokes, at least, are attracting visitors...

and other visitors are working on making a living out there as well...non-vegetarian however...summer is moving along and there are hints of autumn if you look...this season will be in the books before you know it.

zea

there are stands of mixed maize and teosinte around the yard...most of which withstood monday' storm with relatively little falling over..it has been an interesting season for the grasses to date...

some have reached impressive heights...

and whichever that nine foot behemoth is ( i am thinking maize ) it has begun to flower with no sign of silks yet that i can find...the zea mexicana has bloomed and where i found silks a few days ago...

distinct ears are forming..this variety has a shorter season than northern tepehuan and so should again produce viable seed...all the teosinte in the yard was grown from seed produced out there last season...a quantity of which i have frozen for the future...there will be frozen seed this season as well if things work out...

last year i had plants that produced rows of husk-less seeds ( which were viable, some of these plants are from that seed ) and this season i seem to be getting husk-less seed forming at the base of the flowers...all of which i will presume to be normal behavior until ( if ) i learn otherwise...hoping too harvest these and see what comes of them next year...

i know the header says "zea"...however here is some megachile that also survived the storm to go along with it ( even if she is on a sunflower )