seed heads

the winter rye ( top photo ) in my back yard is beginning to produce seed heads four days earlier than last year...do i know what that means? probably not...it may just mean i am four days more observant this year...or that the weather this spring has been more conducive to seed head production...and? if ti's the weather is it indicative of a climate shift...could be but i don't have nearly enough data yet do i? no i do not...so one thing to do is, i suppose, to continue growing winter rye to see what happens...it is pretty much self-seeding....the stand out there grew from seed that fell tot he ground from last year's plants...i did not seed it...so it seems like a fairly easy thing to do...so okay...we're on...they can go along with the jerusalem artichokes and eastern gamagrass ( if i ever get it to germinate..two hours in hydrogen peroxide did not break dormancy seemingly...i will try again but will save seed to plant in ground come november just in case... )lamb's quarters and any other native plant i can find ( ramps for instance...another native ) to see if they have issues or not over the coming years...the wild strawberries are producing multiple stolons in search of new ground to colonize ( second photo...and another native )...there will need to be controls put in place...finally the last photo is of grape blooms today...still geeked about that.

homegrown

neat stuff out back tonight when i got home...the asparagus i planted six year ago has weathered a couple of harsh winters and is still producing ( top photo )...four leaves on the teosinte plant in the second photo are good news as it the tillering of the spring wheat in the third...newly minted spuds are up in the fourth photo while the grape vine in the fifth is producing leaves and tendrils to latch onto the trees around it and escape into the sun above the canopy...cooler still are the two nascent grape flowers in the bottom photo...blooms = grapes..we will be watching these all summer.