162 days ago...

...i found three native berries trying to blom in what was a warm month given it was december...

so i moved them into the basement under the lights...

where, to date, they have produced eleven fully fledged berries and have two in cooking...

as well as a healthy daughter plant...well...it is a coolish overcast day at the end of may and it's high time for them to return to the wild...

so i set the pots out in their new home where i will leave them for a day or two to harden off before i replant them a hundred or so feet away from where they were last year...

they also developed a couple of nearly four foot long stolons down there as well...more daughters?

close by the berries' new home a chinese yam, whith healthy looking leaves, has extended the length of the bed on a trellis of twine ( and you amy notice the walking onions and the ominously vertical jeruasalem artichokes aren't having too shabby a season so far either )...

the rye is in full flower...

ears of black tip wheat are emerging...

bees are buzzing and mugging the winter vetch....

and, a fine note to end on, the mooseberry bush has sprouted two more leaves...so far it's all good.

fruit salad?

we've had about an inch and a quarter of rainfall in the past two days and the temperature has cooled ( it's in the mid fifties [fahrenheit] down from the eighties earlier in the week )...still, things are moving along...

the new york imports in my truck and in the beds are working on their one batch of berries for 2021...

the natives will be doing this until october at least...

the concord grape crop is looking promising this season...frankly any harvest would be an improvement on last year...we will se how the season works out...

the seedless crop, should it come to fruition, will definitely be a smaller one...then again, this is the first year since they were planted that they have even considered producing...again, anything would be an improvement...

and out on the mulberry trees the drupes are forming...an early fruit, they will be second in line after the berries...look for the grapes to take their time...there may be moose berries...there may not...so far a few leaves is all we have...let's be grateful for that...after all it took the seedless grapes five years of preparation before they took the first step...

i am alert to the fact that rye and wheat are grains, not fruit...it's also my blog and my grain so they're here anyway.

never trust the weather

particularly in these changable times...

my thermometer says it isn't close to the eighties ( fahrenheit ) this morning...and the national weather service tells me there is a 70% chance of rain later today...a 90% chance to night...and a 60% chance tomorrow...we'll see...at any rate there is no frost in the garden today...

i am on the "watering schedule " for the campus garden on thursdays and today is thursday so i watered...despite the national weather service...at least those beds i perceived as having been acted on by humans...

and not those solely populated by lamb's quarters and the ever thorny ( in more ways than one ) carolina horse nettle...they don't especially need my intervention anyway...they will thrive without my help...yours either...

it does seem the local critter population has discovered that some planting has gone on...these things happen...

the volunteer spuds over in my bed seem to be doing fine...

the einkorn wheat looks about right...

and the alfalfa is blooming away even though something still seems to be using it as a bed...

i brought along four zea mexicana seelings i had germimated and planted them...unless the millet i sowed fails ( no sign of it yet ) i do believe my bed is planted for the season...don't look for tomatoes...

the asparagus cannot be described as anything but robust...and, like the asparagus in my yard, it is flowering...hoping for "berries" this year...

around the back side of the bed...

the cow peas i sowed are up and running in various stages of development...they will fill the bed and by the end of june you will not be able to see much of the soil...hopefully the soil will become nitrogen rich...then a fall cover crop ( probably rye grass ) to take it up and hold it until it is turned under in spring to release the nitrogen for a new crop of something...sustainable, resilient, relying on natural cycles not chemicals

eleusis 2021

the wheat crop may have been bludgeoned by winter however it is not nonexistant...the mysteries have returned and they have begun to flower...which sent me looking around...

the rye in the east bed is flowering as well...

and the rye by the locust tree even more so...

even the rye growing in the patio has joined in...

the asparagus refuses to be out done...

winter vetch has chimed in...

and, small as it may be, the mooseberry bush has sprouted a third leaf...it has been a pleasant stroll.