the ninth day of spring

and things are, not unexpectedly, fairly quiet...

a day off ( one of many of late...we could veer off into a discussion of the economy here...but that seems off topic ) so i drove out to campus just to check on things...expectations were low and were easily met...

i opened the asparagus bed last trip out, however i wasn't thinking there would be any spears up just yet...next month seems to be the time for that...

the alfalfa is doing just fine however...it will run wild soon enough...thinking spring garlic and some spuds will be going in out here later in the spring ( garlic first...then some potaotoes )...my beds wil be planted by the end of next month...

out in my back yard there is a marked lack of asparagus spears as well...the berry plants are verdant though...

here too, the new alfalfa i planted is coming along well...

with the exception of the wheat i planted on top of a comppost pile last autumn...

the winter wheat is looking rather disconsolate...there is no sign of spring wheat yet...it has been a bit on the cool side here early this spring...germinating will be a minute...

on the other hand, there are clear signs of ramps in the ramp bed...

and a rather large population of dafodils are leading off the parade of blooms out there...must be spring.

wheat

march is moving along so i went out to one of the half barrels on the south side...

cleaned it out, added compost, perlite, and earthworm castings...

and planted about a quarter of this packet of black tip wheat...now we wait...

while we are dicussing wheat, this is what the bed of hard red winter wheat looks like today...

there are scattered clumps of wheat beginning to look alive out there. however...

this is what that same bed looked like on the fourteenth of april 2019...that was the last winter we had appreciable early snow...there was ample snow in the winters of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, however the snow came after substantial cold temperatures had damaged the wheat and the harvests those years was dismal...the sub-zero ( fahrenheit ) cold this year came in december well before what little snow we actually got appeared ( and that all vanished in a mater of days as the temperatures were "unseasonably warm" most of the winter ) and the wheat has again suffered...

i prepared that bed last september in the same manner i have each year so i am reasonably sure the soil was ready...i am inclined to blame the weather...

in other back yard news, the ramp bed is showing a possibility of ramps...

and the alfalfa patch i planted a few days back has some young alflafa up and running...more as it comes up.

first day of spring?

if so it is time to plant the spring wheat...

in this case, some einkorn...these i harvested from the campus carden last season ( something over three hundered )...

and some of the unused seed from 2022 i bought to plant on campus...these may have some misfires...actually i would expect some misfires from all of it...however it is ancient dna and i am relatively sure there is viable seed in both batches...we will see...

i had already dug the bed twice last week...it has been a bed of rye the past few seasons and there were a couple of voluntweer stands of it in the bed...so i left them be...

i added some compost, raked it out, turned it under, hoed the bed, and raked it reasonably even again...

using a weeding hoe has a rough measure i created some shallow furrows with the edge of my hand...

and lined the bottom of the furrows with worm castings...

and while we are talking worms, i found any number as i turned the bed...always a good sign, worms...

i spread the seed in the furrows and raked it under... the seed was enough for eight rows...i did not water today...the compost was near to being mud and there is rain in the forecast so i will hold off on water for now...i have some black tipped wheat seed coming so some of that will go in this bed as well...and some somewhere else...

around the yard, the winter wheat i planted on a compost heap last autumn is looking very well today...

and some ( emphasize "some" ) of the winter wheat in the bed is perking up...was it a snow dorught or is it a soil fertility issue? unknown at this point.. i did did compost this bed thoroughly before i planted it...perhaps that was not enough...i will be adding worm castings to dress this bed as we go along to see...

the ramp bed is berift of ramps...it is early yet however...we will see what comes up in april...

on the other hand, the alfalfa is on the move...must be spring.

alfalfa

i have bees coming in a few months...alfalfa leaf cutter bees to be exact...a couple of hundred in cocoons ( as well as some that wil hatch out on the trip )...

and while the alfalfa i have in the yard is greening up i came to the conclusion i needed another stand ( it will be the third )...

so yesterday when i cleaned out the alflafa bed at the campus garden i saved some of the seed heads and brought them home...

when i got home from work today i crushed some of the dead flowers and sifted them...

just to be certain that seeds were actually produced...

then i went out back and dug up a patch by the back fence, well away from the other two stands...

and stripped the flowers and seeds off the stems onto the soil...there is a rain/snow mix going on right now so they will be well watered...and since they have been out in the cmapus garden all winter they will have been cold shocked and so dormancy should be broken...we will see how it goes in a week or two and, if it goes well, the bees will have a larger supply of nesting materials in the summer