mid april

tax day and the asparagus is starting to come up in strength out in the east bed, with expectation of more to come...

this past weekend i noticed some of the ramps had come up through the leaf mulch so today i opened it and weeded...i had some still viable in the bed from a few years ago and i planted more last autumn so i am looking for a good crop this year, hopefully with some bunching so it can become self-sustaining...a few flowers and som seed wouldn't hurt either...

it is a mostly cloudy and cooler day today with the sunn popping out at intervals so the mason bees are a bit more sluggish than they were a few days ago...they're still out there however and the daffodils, russian olives, violets, and dandelions are still out there as well...feeding, collecting pollen balls, mining soil, and nesting continue.

mason bees

it is a sunny saturday here with temperatures near sixty degrees ( fahrenheit )...flowers are blooming and today i have seen spring bees taking advantage of the opportunity to begin moving their dna to a new generation...

they are fast and somewhat skittish...i do believe that simply my presence disturbs them...and having marigold nosing around pondering what one might taste like doesn't help getting a decent photo ( actually marigold is part of the reason there are mason bees around...as the name implies the bees use clayey soil in their nesting process and marigold, being the terrier she is, opens up a trench in the back yard with little real effort providing ample nesting material )...

the bees are certainly interested in the daffodils and i have noticed them on the crocuses as well...spring has arrived in a number of ways...

aside from the blooms they are showing marked interest in the bee houses around the yard as well...there is an ample supply of them for the mason bees and for the leaf cutters i hope to see later in the summer...so there should be some photos of nesting as spring progresses...we will keep an eye out for those.

asparagus et al

asparagus is popping up in the bed in the back yard...a clear sign it was time to head for campus and open the asprargus bed...i actually resigned from the garden at the end of last season, however, since the asparagus is the last remnant of the perennial garden project on campus and, by extension, among the last bits of kathy forgey on campus i volunteered to attend to the asparagus...

so i drove out to campus, opened the bed, ran a weeding hoe across it and dug back a trench along the asparagus row since asparagus is not the strongest of plants in terms of breaking surface and it appreciates some help...i will fill that back in and add more compost as the season goes on to feed the roots...

there was no asparagus to be seen...only the stumps left behind when i cleared the bed last autumn...they will be along soon enough...

happily the alfalfa made it through the winter and is greening up to feed the bees around june or so ...

unhappily, this row of beds were the first constructed eleven years ago and they are basically falling apart...there needs to be a decision about repair or replacement or removal at some point...

back at home this spud i planted at the bottom of a twelve inch deep container under the lights a month ago is now about eight inches above the top and growing...it can move outside next month and we will see what it yields sometime in june or early july...

the teosinte down there is booming along as well...both plants come from seed i found from 2019...still some viability left in it...

both plants have flowered...this one has silks from two ears it is working on...

and this one is focusing on a single ear so far...seeds? we'll see...

bee houses

because the dog ( marigold by name ) is a terrier and is inclined to open up construction-grade excavations in the back yard, mason bees had ample raw material to work with out there in nesting terms last spring...

and so they began to utilize the bee houses i had hung up around the yard...

after the bees' season ended i took them down and stored them in predator-proof bags in the tool shed for the winter...

spring, and mason bee season, is nearly here and since i cout twenty six tubes of mason bee larva waiting to hatch i concluded it was time to bring them out and hang them back up so they don't hatch out in the tool shed...

the soil is thawing...new excavtions are opening up...the yard is ready...all we need are the daffodils and the bees.

moss and lichens

there are seventeen trees in my back yard two firs among them ( as well as two firs on the south side fo the house ) which serve as sinks for some ( not nearly all ) of the carbon emissions i produce...if i had room there would be more firs out there, however that is not possible...recently i have been reading about the ability of mosses and lichens to sequester carbon and so i went out to look around...

among the mulberries and maples out back there are two gigantic locust trees...

and they are home to a vaiety of mosses and lichens...

the maples back there seem to be only hospitable to lichens since i did not find an moss i could identify...

conversely the black walnut seems exempt as a host...

however the moss and lichens on the dead wood out there...

as well as the moss on the ground...

and lichens on stones make up for the habitat denial...the back yard is a shady place when in leaf and so moss and lichen friendly...i wasn't expecting to find as much in the sunnier front yard...seems i was mistaken in that...

it is a fact that the maples out by the street have a mush sparser population of mosses and lichens than those in the back...

however the ground along the north side of the yard, from the bushes that border the neighboring driveway back to the ramp bed is alive with mosses...including the drive itself...so...pleasingly, there are more carbon offsets in my yard than i had imagined...it will take some serious calculation to discern how much of the carbon i produce these mosses and the combination of fungus and algae that make up lichens will sink and i doubt i can come up with an exact figure...which won't stop me from trying to ballpark it...more later.