can you call my back yard a garden?

in most people's terms this...

would qualify as the definiton...a bed with rows ( well, sort of ) and litle or no native growth...and i have a tendency to toe the strict definiton in comunity gardens...

not so much so at home...as you may surmise by the rye growing in the patio...there is intercropping and masanobu fukuoka has had some influence...

there have been obvious misfires in the maize row at the portage community garden however the maize that has come up ( all hierloom flints ) is looking sturdy...

from the established to the beginners all the spuds i planted are up...and beyond that there isn't that much to tell...native growth seems to be eschewing my bed...don't ask me why...but there wasn't much by way of "weeding" today...back at home...

there is flint corn up...

and for morphological comparison's sake there is teosinte too..

you can tell it's zea...support roots in evidence already...

there's new maize up to replace the misfires back there...

and, again for morphology, brand new teosinte as well...

there are spuds out there too...the ones that came up from the basement a few weeks ago are doing just fine...

so are the annual volunteers in the wheat and rye beds...

there were spuds in the basement that were demanding to be planted so i pulled out some conatiners and got them spread around the yard in various sunny patches...

the pole beans are beginning to vine and fall over...

so i stuck in some bamboos for them to use...they will understand soon enough...

i had noticed that this volunteer field pea, sprung from seed from last year's crop, had commandeered one for its own use out by the asparagus...what i had not noticed...

is that it has already bloomed and new seed is on the way...cool...no need to purchase more...will be keping an eye out for new blooms...

in other news, the grapes are done blooming and are embarking on the difficult work of becoming actual grapes...

and the drupes on the mulberry tree are expanding...there's more...we haven't touched on ramps ( dismal season ), onions ( all over the place ), jeruasalem artichokes and chinese yams ( equally relentless ), or what's up with the garlic...this has gone on long enough, however...

"noticeably drier"? my rain gauges have recorded only two tenths of an inch of rain this month and yesterday's threat of rain remained just that...a threat...the drought monitor predicts i will be in an "abnormally dry" area over the next thirty days...seems there will be watering going on.