the jerusalem artichokes are unquiet

over that past ten years or so the jerusalem artichokes have broken soil surface in the first few weeks of may...this particular specimen was up at the perennial garden project at iun on the twenty-first of march 2012...that was an exceptionally anomolous month in terms of weather with consistent warm temperatures, at times reaching into the eighties ( fahrenheit ) and was followed by a seasonable april and a summer long drought which did not do this plant much good at all...up early and starved for water...at least in terms of rain...and the heat radiating of the nearby ( within ten feet ) walls of hawthorn hall didn't help much either...in 2013 the sunchokes were back on their usual schedule of appearing in may...

out this morning rooting around with marigold...

i discovered that, in the past week, not only have the tubers continued to root...

the have clearly begun to sprout...perhaps a sign that the inordinately warm winter wil have them making an early breakthrough...there are still a little better than thirty-two days until may and they were not usually up on the first...we will see what happens in april.

last third of march and the second full day of spring

we've already discussed that the daffodils are significantly early and that the asparaagus is on schedule...

there was a dusting of snow this morning and although it has warmed this afternoon, temperatures will be below freezing at night over the next few days...

so the mooseberry bush has stalled...

i did not see a fully opened russian olive blooms until april seventh last year...these began opening yesterday so that leaves us seventeen days earlier this year...

marigold and i were rooting around in the jerusalem artichoke bed and we found...

well..roots...this one had sprouted them in three places...

and this ...

had just the one...

these have been breaking soil surface in the first week of may and rooting in march may simply be part of that timeline...the only way to tell is to keep an eye on them and see what pops up and when...so far it is about a fifty/fifty split between on time and early...we will see how that holds.

open

there is asparagus up and running in my back yard...

so since i had some time i wandered over to campus to open the asparagus bed just to see what was what...

there was a bit of frost on the fabric and when i pulled it up it did not seem as though there was much going on...at first...

a closer look showed there was a spear of asparagus that had broken the soil surface...recently given its soil hat...

and over in the southwest corner the alfalfa is beginning to green up...a successful transplant there...

there was no green in the southeast corner...the plant was basically sitting on top of the soil...i would suspect frost heave had pushed it up...

however, when i pulled it up the roots were still supple and moist...

so, since there is some hope for a recovery, i dug a deeper hole and replanted it firmly...we wil be looking at this over the next few weeks to see if the plant can bounce back...they can do that at times...reference the saga of puddles the wheat plant here in this blog from a few years ago...

that done, i turned the back of the bed in an effort to discourage "native growth"...i will be planting back there before the end of the month...i have so sed for emmer and einkorn wheat and will likely throw some barley into the mix...a bed of grain i think is in order...more when we check in on the alfalfa.

what's up

not all that much actually...however there are some notes of interest...

it has been unnaturally warm ( or the new naturally warm ) so far this year and, while my thermometer doesn't show a record breaking temeprature ( seventy-seven degrees fahrenheit ) it is considerably above the average ( i know, averages lie ) of forty-six...what impact this has had i am uncertain...temperature or day length?

the daffodils are in full bloom signifcantly earlier than last season's march thirtieth...

the strawberries are evincing new growth...however thay have been green all winter...

last year the mooseberry bush (high bush cranberry for those of you who did not grow up with rocky and bullwinkle ) was not this far along until the fifth of april...

jerusalem artichokes usually come up in early may...this one looks like it is satrting to produce a root and i will be keeping an eye on it to see what transpires and when...

finally, there was no asparagus up in this bed when i checked two days ago, however there is today...and this is on schedule...so..a mash-up of early, on time, and uncertain start times...we'll see.