not even maintenance...just a look around

the soil was moist so i did not feel compelled to water, there was no damage from yesterday's storm, and the bed is so densely populated there was no need to do in native plants...they are being completely shaded out...

so i just did a tour around bed one...

the maize row is booming along...

with some fine ears...

there are still a multitude of potato blooms and more in the offing...

even so we seem to be skunked in terms of fruits...unfortunate, however potato fruits are not the norm in my experience...

there will be quinoa...

and the happy beans are beaning away...it is the penultimate day of july...we may not be exactly where i would like...but many of the decisions are not mine to make...gardening teaches patience...acceptance as well...more as it comes up.

living on the edge...

...of the heat dome the air is unstable and for the second time in three days...

a short-lived line of thunderstorms knocked down some of my maize and teosinte out back...

so i stood it back up ( again )...

this particular maize plant...

has a damaged stalk so , rather than risk snapping it off, i left it lay...if it succeeds in producing ears it will do so in a prone position...

a tenth of an inch of rain may seem like little for the work...however i am not carping...there is drought out west...along with some flooding...one wonders when the deniers will see the pattern...and while we are talking patterns...

the jerusalem artichokes were unimpressed by wind and rain and have reached between six and eight feet in height...

they are also blooming...which struck me as being a bit early...so i ahd a look at the past...last season i fond blooms on august third...in 2019 on august sixth...and in 2018 on august eighth...while those blooms may have appeared before i noticed it would have only been by a day...i am a regular, daily vistior to the back yard...i have spent the past ten years or so trying to become native to it and understand what i could...and what i understand is july twenty-ninth is somewhat earlier than sometime in august...even though it fits the pattern of earlier bloming that has been going on for the past few seasons...and not the first marker i have noticed this year...the new york import strawberries were blooming noticably earlier too...

in other back yard news, the pole beans...which, at one point, i thought had bolted, are blooming and producing more vigorously...

i saw a cardinal ( one of three pairs that hang around here ) in the black chestnut...

a butterfly feeding on a very orange flower...

and the first dragonfly i have seen in a couple of weeks...my wander out into the yard with a camera this afternoon seems to have been well timed.

stood up

a short but reasonably sharp line of thunderstorms came thorugh here saturday eveining and knocked down some of the zea out back...zea in general and teosinte in particular either wants to ( teosinte ) or doesn't mind ( maize ) falling over...

so i stood it back up...albeit, for some, with the help of some bamboos and twine...for the most part however they simply stood back up when straightened...i worked sunday and so did not have time to make it to the portage garden so i went out there this morning...

i found there was a gap in the maize row as one of the plants had been knocked into the spuds...

which are still blooming prolifically and whose production of actual fruits is seeming to be of a low order of probability...these things happen...

the fallen plant is fairly large so i drove in a garden stake...

and with the help of some jute twine returned it to what will have to pass for verical for the nonce...it may straighten...it may not...as long as it still pollinates the silks it is of little importance...

the stalk has two ears in progress and there are signs of a possible third...

altogether i count seven ears out there and a few coming along out back...perhaps some corn meal and definitely seed for next season...

on other news from bed one, the row of happy beans is now engaging in bean production as well as blooming...cool beans.

summer begins to bug me

this summer has brought the usual population of japanese beetles...both singly...

and in pairs...doing thier usual work...

of skeletalizing grape...

and bean leaves...however, beyond these irritants i have discovered both...

a grapevine beetle...

and a colorado potato beetle...both are native to the area and so are not climate migrants ( the potato beetle was first seen in 1811 and has moved steadily east and across thre atlantic to europe...migrants to be sure, simply not recent arrivals )...the grapvine beetle would seem to be a fairly harmless parasite...it is not classed as a "pest"...

and neither the seedless grapes on the trellis...

nor the concords in the fir and catalpa trees seem to be suffering much damage from either of the the beetle species chewing the leaves and stems ( the birds will nail the grapes in due time...flash tape soon enough )...i don't see a lot of damage on the spuds either albeit that when you see one beetle you can safely bet there are more and i am told they are prolific reproducers...vigilance is called for and we will keep our eyes open and look around...

and as a parting shot from the insect world, i found a bumblebee taking a break on a bean leaf and she was clearly unhappy about posing for a nosy photographer...the "buzz off" couldn't be plainer.

a couple of communities

it's a cool morning for nearing the end of july at the tip of the inland sea...

however the soil at the campus garden said it was time to water despite the cool...

so i did...

over in my bed results are mixed... ( anything new in that in gardening terms? not for me. )...

the teosinte has recovered from the shock of being uprooted and replanted...

however its eight or so inches is fairly stunted compared to the three footers in my back yard...it has survived...happy is another issue...

the spuds continue to threaten to bloom...

and the ten thousand year old dna in the einkorn wheat is close to finishing another season of reproduction...

the asparagus has put up another new spear...

and, as i believe i surmised earlier, the cow peas have ignored the twine and vined up the asparagus...the dangers of not being present in the garden daily...

they have also begun to bloom...pods soon enough...

while i was nosing around the asparagus i came across something i wish i had seen at home...napping leaf cutters...the girls are present here at least and i am pleased...

bees that fly in cooler tempreratures ( leaf cutters need seventy-five or so degrees fahrenheit ) were working the squash...

and bumblebees were mugging the carolina horse nettle...odd how bees treat ornamental blooms as famine food...i never see them on marigolds before october when everything else is gone...one presumes they would prefer to dumpster dive for stale coca-sola first...

john steuart curry came to the portage garden where my maize is taller than i am today ( some anyway )...and if i did not see any bees here, there were certainly enough flowers to attract them...

maize is self pollinating so there won't be a lot of bees around these...

silks and the attendant ears have timed their emergence to near perfection in terms of flowering...kernels soon enough...

and quinoa flowers are turning to seed...

the row of happy beans has added it share of blooms to the bed...

however, in terms of overall number of blossoms, the spud row has outdone them all...

they have a fairly standardized shape, in terms of size and color though they have produced a solid variety...

unfortunately the signs ( so far ) are that all that blooming will not result in fruits...the blooms are simply falling off the stems...not the way i had hoped this would go...there is still hope bacause there are more blooms on the way...all this energy in flowers and buds does have me wondering about tuber size though...we won't know about that for at least another month.