when i was at the campus garden a week ago it was in a downpour of rain...the photos i took were clearly blurred by the excess of water around and, because of the rain, i elected not to harvest the remainder of the einkorn wheat...this was error...
error because when i arrived at the garden this morning the first thing i noticed was that the starlings and grackels had beaten me to the harvest...
what was left was so thoroughly picked over i lfet it for th birds...fortunately i did bring in enough to plant nest spring so it was not a dead loss...
the bed is in the process of being colonized by japanese bottle grass so nest trip out i will be cleating the bed and planting some sort of cover crop...not rye grass since what i did plant in this bed failed so perhaps field peas to turn under in the autumn...
on the other side of the bed the asparagus has put up another summer spear...so things seem in order there...
over in my "official" bed the hopi turquoise is looking robust...
flowers are emerging and we will be looking for ears soon enough...while we are talking flowers...
the alfalfa is still blooming, however...
there are signs of fall as the fertilized blooms die back and begin forming seed pods ( alfalfa is a legume after all...there will be pods )...and in further flower/fertilization news...
the garden is home to a flourishing bed of carolina horse nettle, complementing the plants scattered throughout the garden lawn...and the blooms...
across the bed...
are being happily worked over by what was, by my unscientific survey, a dozen bumble bees...and the result of that work ( aside from well fed bees )?
a secondary reproductive system to complement their spread by rhyzomes...like palmer's amaranth, carolina horse nettle has found a home here.
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