bees, spuds, drupes

the leaf cutters are showing no sign of hatching out...which is distressing but understandable given that in nearly mid june we have early may temperatures going on and they do not like sub seventy ( fahrenheit ) weather...we wait...impatiently but we wait...

the hawthorn is blooming and you can smell it for hundreds of yards and i was becoming concerned that all i was seeing on it was flies...

that concern is somewhat assuaged this evening as i found fully two individual social bees in the tree...two bees is not many...it is considerably better than none...

i hounded them all through the tree however a fairly stiff breeze that moved the branches at inopportune moments made a mockery of some of my photographic attempts...still.. a few came out...

one of the bison spuds i started in the basement has finished...it rendered eight new potato sized spuds...which i have a use for and will probably act on...there are two more that are contemporary with this one that will doubtlessly finish soon as well...the government spuds are booming along and the bisons i just planted last week have not come into leaf just yet...the weather is not cooperating...

lastly it is almost mid-june and there are mulberries in the works...the drupes are green right now...soon enough they will be dark ripe and sweet...the birds will be spreading seeds all over the place...dna is relentless and the ways it reproduces itself are manifold...from clones to stolons to rhizomes to seeds...all in the back yard.

behaviors

it is the thirteenth of june and the blooms on the hawthorn have begin to turn brown and die back...

so far this year i have found two bees i the tree...this one and one that would not hold still for a portrait...i don't doubt there were more, however in the past two years when i went out here i found more bees than i could count or photograph at any given time of day...not so this season and it bothers me...

where i have been finding them with more regularity is in the winter vetch...okay..a bloom is a bloom and we all have preferences...even there though they seem pretty sparse...few and at fairly long intervals...there are many flowers in the yard and last season the bees seemed to favor the marigolds and the jerusalem artichokes once the hawthorn faded...we will see if their numbers increase or if the sightings remain spare...

there is other life out there searching for sustenance...this one a bit more carnivorous...

elsewhere things are popping up and carrying on...found some volunteer tomatoes today...i am wagering they are cherry tomatoes...once you plant those they never seem to vanish...

the asparagus seedlings are coming along...the one that is obviously of the purple variety is poking along while its container mate has begun to "fern" and already has put up a second spear to feed the roots...this is microcosm by the by..the tallest seedling is a mere inch and a half which should give some scale tot he other plant life that is growing in there...

the mashua is still very small as well...and producing more leaves...there will be vines soon enough...

the first potato flower of the season has opened...

the winter rye has been done with flowering for a few weeks now and has begun to ripen...harvest in mid-july or so...

flowers and aerial bulbs on the "walking" onions...

and the maize in my yard are not volunteers...i pressed them into service.

pleasant surprises

it has be3en a glomy day in the seventies ( fahrenheit ) today...however things have not ground to a halt...

a small wasp was visiting the grapes...

a single, slow bee in the hawthorn posed for multiple photos...

the egyptian walking onions are both flowering and deploying aerial bulbs preparatory to "walking"...

the mashua continues to produce new leaves and look more like its cousin the nasturtium...

i lashed the potted teosinte to a support pole to keep it from falling over...it continues to produce ears and green seeds are now clearly visible...

the chinese yam is vining they way yams do...all over the trellis...and adding new leaves every day...waxy and very green...

yesterday the puddle wheat took pride of place at the end of the blog because the first ear of wheat appeared...and today puddles has brought forth a second one which the gardener finds both surprising ( but puddles has been a sort of surprise all her life ) and cheering in a somewhat dreary day...however...

today's end note goes to no less a pleasing find...these two photos are of asparagus seedlings each about an inch and a half tall ( about three and three quarters centimeters )...they have germinated from seed i collected at the community garden on campus last autumn and which i planted in the container with the potted teosinte ( so i could find them ) a month or so ago...the asparagus in the community garden was grown from seed from the original asparagus in the perennial garden project over by ( coincidentally to the bees in the tree ) hawthorn hall ( which has hawthorn trees planter along its from on broadway ) so a part of the original garden that kathy forgey and i started has come home to my yard...perhaps not full circle...some closure none the less.