define "gardening"

i imagine many people associate the term "gardening" with growing fruits and vegetables like potatoes...which i am growing this eason...

and corn ( although this is hopi blue which is a flint and intneded to be ground into corn meal ) which i have in the community gardens and the yard...

or tomatoes which are all over out there...

and a few sunflowers...

as well as beans...some of which are still blooming away and some of which i am saving for seed next year...fairly standard stuff...ant then there are any number of plants that are non-standard which i find of more interest...

the ancestor of that maize is blooming as well...

and it has silks like its descendant...if not as overtly visible they serve the same function...

and, a few days ago, i found some actual ears and seeds going on...

however...what caught my eye today as i was wandering around back there is that a few of those four corners potato blooms that had not fallen off the plants...

have become fruits...so now we have hopes of both tubers and seeds...gardening is going okay this season

zea,spuds, and beans

went to the garden and pulled in another seven pounds six and three eighths ounces of spuds from the half bed i planted which brings the harvest from that up to sixteen pounds and half an ounce to date...there are still a few more plants that are not finished so the total should rise...we will see...

the hopi blue maize there is blooming...

and one plant has produced two ears to date...

this one in a different bed must be pushing eleven or twelve feet in height...

just for scale, i am around six feet tall and i took this photo holding the camera at arm's length over my head...

it has not produced any ears yet, however, in true "three sisters" style, it does have a bean vine using it as a trellis...

the vine is blooming...

and the bees are obligingly paying them visits....

here at home the hopi blue...

is also blooming...

and producing...

not wanting to be left behind the teosinte...

is blooming as well...

and exhibiting silks, if not ears ( yet )...

the jerusalem artichokes are in full bloom ( so it must be august )...

and the concord grapes are ripening ( yet another sign of both august and incipient autumn )...things are moving along.

ancestral dna

the teosinte out back is coming along well so far...

flowers have been emerging over the last week or so...

and this afternoon i noticed silks for the first time this season...if everything holds together this bodes well for some ears and, with any luck, replication of ancestral dna through viable seed...i have a store of frozen seed from past years and i am considering mixing some in with this years crop next season in a larger planting to try and foster more genetic diveristy in the seed...we need to get through this season first however so we can put that thought aside until say march 2024 or so...and who knows what may happen before then?