amazing

red inchelium garlic plants continue to pop up ( top photo )...fourteen in all now...we will be doing some heavy duty mulching here soon enough to insure the roots make it through the winter...they are cold hardy but we want to be sure...further along the beds i found a full ripened ear of what i thought was pod corn since it was at the end of the three sisters' bed that i planted pod corn seed in...so i harvested it and wandered over to the picnic table to husk it and, to my complete surprise, discovered it was a fully formed ear of twelve row apache red maize...amazing...the squirrels actually missed one...there is a stunted and deformed ear that i harvested earlier but this is the real mccoy...a bit of season end good news.

the maize of late august

the apache red in the top photo is beginning to "red" ( like hopi blue "blues" ) which i discovered when i found a critter gnawed ear...one plant down the bed i spotted another one i though the squirrels had been at...but no! the husk of a stunted and malformed ear had split open to reveal an ear about as done as it was going to get...a pineaplley sort of affair with kernels only on one side but, perhaps, the only mature ear that we will harvest this season...it is safely residing on my desk at the moment and on close examination it resembles popcorn more than a flint corn...could it be that the dakota black crossed with the apache red? could be...corn is wind pollinated and they were in fairly close proximity...i will be letting the little one dry for now...all community members have visitation rights...let me know when you're up for it...the bottom photo is of a pod corn ear coming along well...will the critters assault it? don't know...plan to find out.

zea mays

one large, rounded leaf and a narrow pointed one are emblematic of the zea mays seedling...as the seedling grows the leaves separate and the rounded one begins to elongate until it too is narrow and pointed...these nark the bottom of the stem and , soon enough, more leaves will appear in succession up the central stalk...then support roots will emerge...we have thirty-five seedlings in various stages of emergence today in every bed they were planted in...i know where the sweet corn is because i planted it...cynthia ( she is the one smiling up form the bed she's planting in the planting day post ) handled the apache red , dakota black ,and hopi blue so i am unsure exactly where each variety is...however the should be at least a representative of each out there...the hopi blue was planted in seed form an ear we grew last season in the old garden so the old mixes with the new..continuity is an important facet of gardening...persistence too...we are chock full of that...things are booming on 35th avenue...tough as it is why don't you set aside the books and stroll over form the library sometime...maize loves visitors.

planting day preperations: maize

yesterday i put a gallon of tap water in a milk jug and left the lid off to let the chlorine evanesce...today i pored about a cup of it into each of four containers and labeled them appropriately...then i put fifteen seeds each of apache red, hopi blue, and dakota black maize, as well as thirty sweet corn seeds, in to soak until they are planted tomorrow...the hopi blue seed is from maize we grew in the old community garden and it represents some continuity between the old and new sites...these are open for anyone to plant in the bed of their choice...we will be establishing a three sisters' guild of maize, beans, and squash...in any open bed space ( if any is left ) or directly into hills established by clearing sod off the soil directly behind the beds...the traditional native american combination of plant carbohydrates and proteins should do well.