campus movement

took a trip out to campus this morning...and things have changed...this...

has become this....

the cleanup has commenced...

signs are up...including the ones in the asparagus bed ( which is mine this season ) and in my bed from 2019...

beyond that there is movement but it is of a more sedate tempo ( whith one exception )...

as i looked over my bed i found an elmer's blue had migrated to the surface...

it was rooting away on the surface and would have eventually sprouted...however, mindful of the unreliable weather and the possibility of predation i planted it a bit deeper...

after that was accomplished i turned the unoccupied portion of my bed...

and ( surprise! ) i turned up yet another volunteer spud from 2019 which i replanted at the end of the stand of einkorn wheat...

which is coming along, slowly...the plants all have second or third leaves which indicates the roots are progressing...there may be some fencing erected soon to keep things tidy there...

in contrast, the alfalfa plants are not wasting any time...they are booming along preparing for whatever bees ( one hopes for leafcutters ) may find their way to the garden...they will be ready...

the asparagus population is ( gratifyingly ) expanding reasonably rapidly...however it lacks verticality so the prospects of a harvest today were dim, if nonexistent...

i brought all my stuff homne and i had the entire garden to myself so distance was not an issue...one senses over-caution...institutional bureaucracies are like that...thinking the plants are disinterested in signs...they know what to do...pandemic or not.

yard climate markers?

maybe...certainly different enough to get my attention and have me go back over some records and photos stored on the portable hard drive...

i found the first bloom on the imported new york strawberries on the twelfth of this month...in 2019 i found the first one on the twenty-third of april...eleven days earlier this year...and in 2020 i found the first bloom on the twenty-first of april...nine days earlier this year...

i just now found the first jerusalem artichoke ( don't worry about the detritus on top of the plant...it certainly won't )...in 2019 it was the twenty-fifth of april and in 2020 the thirtieth so this year it is eight and thirteen days earlier respectively...could they have been up earlier in 2019 and 2020 and i just mised them? doubtlessly posible...but then this year's could have been earlier as well...however i am interested and observant enough that it wouldn't have been off by more than a day or two...the usda quietly changed my hardiness zone a couple of years ago and it just may be that the plants in my yard are validating that change.

a growing community

looking around the campus garden this morning is seems obvious that i am, for the nonce at least, the only gardener ( "garden steward" is the official title...this strikes me as pretentious...i could editorialize about human stewardship of the planet...however the quality of that endeavor is apparent to any but the most politically obdurate and/or obtuse ) in attendance...it is not too early...

things are moving along in the garden anyway...

the alfalfa in my bed has made significant progress since my last visit...

as has the einkorn wheat i planted...it won't be the largest stand of wheat, however it will be by far the oldest dna in the garden...

native plants were making another appearance in the unplanted segment of the bed so i turned and hoed it again...

and, in what seems to be becoming an habitual behavior, i turned up yet another elmer's blue spud which i replanted in the area already populated by replanted volunteers...an unintended population but what do you do?

around the corner and down the row from my bed i found news from the asparagus...it has survived a year and change without human intervention ( not entirely unexpected given the size of the plants that had died back last season ) and that makes me a pleased gardener...

it is up and running in a variety of sizes...

some of which were ready to harvest...once the harvest season is over and the asparagus "ferns" i will be compsting it heavily to make up for a lost year of feeding and since it is up my frequency of visits will increase...over the next month and a half there will be an incresed population in my bed...the exact demiographic of that population is in flux because of external demands...the original concept of all green manures has been pretty much scrapped ( although i will be planting a few cowpeas )...inputs of compost will have to substitute...however, aside from the volunteer spuds, you can expect a raft of plants that are not traditional vegetable garden denizens.

rain blooms green addendum

i forgot to mention...

two of the htree asparagus plants are spearing away happily...the third is late and that is, at this point, mildly disturbing...

remeber last august when i was cutting the seed heads off the harvested wheat and rye?

i'm thinking some may have escaped because that looks an awfully lot like rye growing in the cracks in the patio...we wil be keeping an eye on this...never turn down grain...paleolithic peoples didn't...

and ( finally! ) while i was out taking a second look at the berry patch on the south side of the house ( there are more ) i found this one displaying the berries' binary system of reproduction even this early in the season...a bloom that will, if it all works right, be a seed bearing berry for avian dispersal and a stolon starting out to establish a daughter plant...relentless dna at work.

rain blooms green

it's in the seventies ( fahrenheit )...

and after six tenths of an inch of rain over the last day and a half it is sunny out there...so things are in motion...

the daffodils are about finished, howevere the tulips have begun to pop up...

the new york imports out in the berry patch have decided to start a season...

the rye rebound is going well...

difficult as it is to see there is some winter wheat that pulled through mixed in with the natives...

and the einkorn i sowed last month is filling in...

the ramps are putting on a display of developmental stages...

the main garlic patch is looking robust ( as is the remainder which is spread out around the yard )...

and to complete the alliun picture there are walking onions just about anywhere you's care to look back there...these will be under the thrall of the jerusalem artichokes soon enough...something has been digging those up ( squirrels one presumes although one should not overlook the local raccoon population as suspects ) which may mean someone may find a colony in their yard...they can be controlled...one has to be vigilant...sunchokes are tricky...okay...time to mow the grass.