unseasonably cold

today's high temperature is forecast to be thirty-five degrees ( fahrenheit ) which is a might chilly for mid-november here...and lows are forecast to be in the single digits over the weekend...that has not deterred this michigan blue from screaming it is time to be planted...so...

i found a five gallon bucket with the requisite drainage holes...

tossed in some perlite...

and mixed it in with the compost i added to keep the soil loose for young roots...

and gave the spud a home in what resembles an alien landscape with alien included...then i went outside...

to have a look at the teosinte and search for some seed...

i found a few that may be viable to add to the harvest, however i am afraid anything out there that is still green will not be maturing...that harvest is, i believe, ended...we will look some more when the weather moderates next week...i am not especially sanguine though.

soak

it has been inordinately warm of late...since yesterday that has changed...the temperature is in the mid thirties ( fahrenheit ) right now and forcast to go well below freezing tonight...it is autumn and tesointe ears have been opening and shattering out in the back yard...

unfortunately there are a considrable number of green ears out there as well and with temperatures falling i am uncertain about their chances of maturing...we will keep an eye on that but we are not overly sanguine...

fortunately i have been harvesting mature seed since late september...

and i have a shade over a thousand...which is around half of what i harvested last season...

the seed i found last month trying to germinate in the ear, and which i planted downstairs under the ights, seems to have completely misfired...no sign of it at all in the peat pot...

so as a viability test i picked out three seeds...

soaked them in hydrogen peroxide for twenty minutes ot break dormancy...

wrapped them ion a brown paper towel dampened with distilled water, put the paper towel in a baggie...and put that in a dark place until next weekend or so...if they germinate they will spend the winter in the basement and we will see how they do...

most teosinte seed comes in a single spike inside the ear ( ancestor and domesticate in this photo )...

however i planted maize along with the teosinte out there and some of the teosinte plants have been exhibiting seed on cob-like structures ( unfortunately these seem to mostly be in green ears...cross-pollinization impacting season length? no real clue )...

some of the seed seems to have already shattered...

hopefully some of the remaining seed is viable and can be induced to grow in the spring...a future project...let's see how this one pans out first.