28 0ctober 2017 to 25 july 2018

last october twenty-eighth i found an ear of wheat that had germinated in a puddle of water in my basement...i planted it and put it under the grow lights in the basement plant room because i wasn't going to let it just expire...i was skeptical of it producing ears down there because there wasn't going to be anything like a natural day length...

Jean dubbed it the "puddle wheat" ( which was, at some point, was shortened to just "puddles" ) and she prospered to the extent that she grew long, green wheat blades like a good grass will..but no ears...

by april she had begun to show signs of dying back, like all annuals will do, she was one hundred and forty -nine days old at this point and spring wheat runs about a four month season...it was natural...Jean wanted ( and i agreed...it was not obliging ) her to see the sun and feel wind so on april twenty second i took her outside...

and here is where the story becomes a bit of a surprise...on may seventh i discovered what looked like new growth for puddles...at fist i thought something else had seeded itself in the container but as the days past it became more and more clear that this was a new burst of growth from a one hundred and sixty-four day old wheat plant...

by may twenty eighth ( two hundred and eleven days in ) she began to produce her first ears of wheat...

and by a week later it was obvious she was dead serious about wheat...

this week a determined puddles finished her ( for my money ) remarkable season...fifty-five ears worth of come-back production...and so, two hundred and seventy days since her roots touched soil, i harvested what puddles worked so hard on...

she did a good job..creating large ears of wheat with good sized "berries"

i set aside roughly half of the ears ( those that are on the straighter stems ) to send along to Jean...the rest i will keep and thresh and winnow...and late next march i will plant a few containers of puddle's offspring..continue her dna and a unbroken ten thousand year old chain of wheat planting...her family has a long history...

her root system was not nearly as large as i thought it would be...hardly matters...what mattered was her resiliency...my vote for "tough little plant" of 2018.

a sheaf and some tubers

the small stand of winter rye is done and it is supposed to rain tonight so i decided to bring it in...not any sort of record sheaf by agricultural standards...however, since the plan was to grow seed for a bed of winter rye...once either the potato bed or the bed of wheat comes in it will go into winter rye...and i will use the other for another attempt at winter wheat...the spring wheat will be a disappointment although it will provide seed for emmer, einkorn, dwarf syrian, and pacific bluestem to grow in containers next season...along with seed from Jean's puddle wheat for a new generation from that unexpected plant...there will be rye production data after threshing an winnowing...

the seed in the ears on the potted teosinte continue to mature and will be done soon enough...

it may take a moment to see, however this teosinte plant has four branches, each with a flower at the end...

and each branch has three or four ears forming...i am beginning to hold extravagant hopes for seed this season...

some of the spuds i planted in april have begun to die back...

initially i found four but after rooting around a bit that increased to half a dozen fair sized tubers that weighed in around one and a quarter pounds...that bed should be entirely done in the next few weeks...except the blues..which will go on until there's a frost or i pull them in ...probably the latter since i will be wanting the space for winter rye/wheat in september...

finally a photo of "puddles" for Jean... a nine month old wheat plant...we thought her about done when i brought her up from the basement in april...she had other ideas and her resilience insisted on producing fifty-five ears of grain...some will find its way to Jean...some will produce "puddles'" offspring next season...we will be propagating a new generation late next march.

allium,medicago, triticum, secale, vicia, zea

dna does not waste time and there is reproduction going on every day out back...ears, flowers, seeds, bees...everything is in a state of movement...the winter rye continues to ripen and will be the first grain to be harvested and, as these things go , the first to be replanted...

the black tip wheat was the first of the spring wheats to "ear" and will doubtlessly be the next harvest...

Jean's long-lived and obdurate "puddle wheat" has now deployed six ears with more on the way...the wheat story of the season...

the dwarf syrian wheat has numerous, green, robust ears...

while the emmer...

and einkorn are just beginning to emerge...

the yellow onions are beginning to bloom...someone will tell me to pinch them off...however i will not...this is their second year,the onions are large....and i want the seeds...

in their own berserk fashion the egyptian walking onions are propagating themselves...aerial bulbs and flowers are redundant...and dna is adamant...

the potted teosinte has multiple ears along the stem and some still very green seeds showing...these will certainly have a full season since they were well developed before i brought them out from the basement...so hoping for the possibility of a third generation of viable seed produced in my yard...

what i have seen in the way of honey bees this year have been all over the winter vetch...

and they have responded by producing seed pods like a good legume...

meanwhile the leaf cutters are dancing with the alfalfa...things are definitely changing...you can see it if you pay attention ( deniers scoff! )...nature still works...we will see if we can adapt as well.

yams...new growth...a return

that's the first chinese yam of the season...i did not plant any bulbs...however that doesn't mean i didn't miss some last fall when i tried to harvest them all...last year there were three separate vines...we will see what this year brings...

around the corner the teosinte i planted yesterday is beginning to green up a bit...always encouraging ( i know i am pushing the season...but i am a geek )

meanwhile the teosinte plant i brought out from under the plant room lights last week is undergoing some changes...

the old growth, including the flower, has shocked ( devil UV ) and died back...however...

it is also showing good new growth down the stem...

and a new flower is emerging..so there may be a full season fro this plant yet...and, if all goes well...a double tesointe season out back...

and while we are on the subject of unexpected new growth...i put Jean's puddle wheat out at about the same time fully expecting it to end its season that began last october in a puddle of water in the basement...it has other ideas it seems as new growth is up and running at the base..it could be a germinating interloper...however it looks a lot like wheat to me...we will keep an eye out for eats...

finally...i have been rewilding some of the jerusalem artichokes i dug out of the community garden on campus...they are going in in unobtrusive spots where they are unlikely to be interfered with or interfere with anything anyone else is doing...they are native plants...they can still be found on roadsides and in untrammeled areas if you know where to look...they are edible...and, again, native...their range has been impacted by suburban sprawl and agricultural activities ( like herbicides )...reestablishing a native range seems reasonable.