hoed

about two months ago there was a lot going on in the garden...

even a month ago it was a fairly lively place...

not so much so today...

the asparagus is still there...it is beginning to die back though and i will be tasking it out sometime next week when the opportunity arises...

and despite the success of puddles offspring in the basement ( eight in all so far and the onions are up as well )...

as well as the robust growth in the winter wheat bed in my yard...

the effort yo grow winter wheat as a cover crop and green manure in my bed on campus has inexplicably ( to me ) failed...not that i expected much from the second planting..however, the cause the failure of the first after a fairly promising start is and unknown...so i pulled out the dead geranium ...

and took a hoe to it to disrupt any nascent "weeds" i don't want hampering progress in spring...

all that was left when i finished was the alfalfa in the corner...

there were no bees in the alfalfa today...there were a couple of visitors though...enjoying the late october warmth...more on the asparagus later.

quantifying labor

i spent an hour by the clock this morning threshing winter rye...pulling seed heads off the stalks and aggressively rolling them between both thumbs and index fingers...and being repeatedly stabbed by awns...goes with the territory...that hour of threshing got me 1 1/4 ounces of rye seed and awns and chaff ( yes i zeroed out the scale to negate the container's weight before i weighed the product )...another ten minutes of winnowing the grain and i had netted 1 1/8 ounces of clean rye seed to add to what has already been done...a total of 3 3/8 ounces so far, or about three-and-a-half hours of work..so...what's the result of that work? ( and there is more to do ) we ( because this will be going into the community garden too ) get w winter cover crop that is locally produced ( my back yard is as local as i can get )...it will also act as a reservoir for nitrogen th egreen manures that are planned for the garden will produce...two thirds of those seeds ( winter vetch and dixie clover ) will come form stands i grew in my yard as well ( i have not quantifies the labor for those...the winter vetch is simply a matter of splitting open the pods and dropping seeds into a container...about a thousand seeds to an ounce...not tremendously time consuming and i have 5 1/8 ounces of seed...more than enough for our purposes....dixie clover is far more intricate [ particularly when you have clumsy fingers ] and the returns far smaller in quantity of seed...that's another post ) the yet...field peas i purchased as well as inoculant for the bacteria to set up the symbiosis...we are not completely independent...yet...the good news is once a rizobia colony is established in a bed it can survive for up to five years without the introduction of host plants...if we use green manures every year we should only have to inoculate the beds once...more independence...i will be planting stands f all these plants this late summer to grow more seed...the process continues...so does the work.

wild potatoes IIa

came home from work to find germination going on...two of the three bolivan accession i planted are up and running and there's movement among the argentinians as well...nothing from the russian seeds but it is early days...some folks had claimed germination if four days so i was a bit concerned since it has been eleven days since is tarted this batch and after the first failure i was wondering...i haven't had much experience with wild potatoes and direct seeding hasn't worked out well for me in past attempts..the hope here is to produce small tubers to plant in the community garden next spring along with domesticated potatoes to provide a morphological comparison...wheat grass and wheat along with teosinte and maize will make up the other parts of the trio of comparisons...these were the ones i was worried about and , if nothing else, i know i can start plants to transplant if the tubers fail to materialize...i am somewhat relieved...geeked too.

high summer produce

not quite half way through summer and the produce is beginning to fill in...i stopped counting cukes in the wall at around thirty...there are eight tasseled ears of sweet corn and more forming ( while the hopi blue is just starting to flower a few beds away )...tomatoes have grown out of their cage and found the white eggplant while one bed east the strawberries are burgeoning...and the bottom photo is of the southwest corner of the garden about five-thirty this evening...there is more to do in the garden and more produce on the way ( when i got home i found four of the twelve cauliflower plants i started have germinated...fall cauliflower is on the way if i have anything to do with it )...we have started but we aren't finished...and ideas for next season have been suggesting themselves...we missed some significant landraces such as beans and pulses...we need to fix that...stop by when you get the chance...chime in with your thoughts...this is a community...so join in.

a few more from the comunity garden

i was on campus early to take care of a few unfinished chores from yesterday and took more photos...the cucumber wall looks like it is lining up for a prolific season which is pleasing...the strawberries have settled in to produce as well...these are still a bit green...i harvested all the ripe ones i found yesterday but there will be more ready tomorrow...the bottom photo is for me really...northern tepehuan teosinte in the front roe backed up by hopi blue maize...ancestor/domesticate...two generations in one image so to speak.

more corn and cucumbers

not only is the sweet corn in the garden in full flower, in the two days that have elapsed since my last visit tasseled ears have developed...i am encouraged by the continued existence of undisturbed eggplants in one of the beds to think that predation may have abated in a non drought year where there are more food choices for the critters out there and to hope we may actually harvest some corn...this may be foolish thinking but i am probably no more a stranger to that than anyone else so hope i will...the cucumber wall is producing cukes and is filling in the trellis admirably ( this , of course, from the one working the bed...take salt as needed ) and another ray of harvest hope...it is good in the garden again this evening...hope your evening is too.

there are many beds in the garden...

...and they have a host of robust plants growing in them...the sweet corn ears are becoming more pronounced wit every visit...the plants are in full flower and i would expect tassels soon...the cucumber wall is blooming and producing some not so nascent cucumbers...salad anyone? the purple kohlrabi has me thinking of the purple cauliflower i planted and am still waiting on...the seed pack said the test germination yielded only 89%...did i plant the 11% that are duds? i see a replant in the very near future...the eggplants in the bottom two photos are deep in production and some seem to be nearing maturity...perhaps the squirrels have had their fill this year...i can hope...it is good in the garden this july ( far better than last ) and i think we can look forward to good production into autumn...then a lesson ( for me anyway ) in mulching strawberries for winter...several years experience mulching asparagus should come in handy as a start point, no? green manures and rhizobia bacteria on tap for the end of the month...stay tuned for that...ellen tells me she has found a new friend for the garden today who will help spread the word about our efforts...i say cool beans to that...stop by and visit when you have a moment...join in if you can.

sweet corn in the garden

"a garden is a contrived ecosystem; it requires continuous attendance by a gardener to keep it in its desired state." william r. catton, jr. from "overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change."__________________________i would say more determined than continuous but it's all about human intervention...plants do not align themselves in rows in nature but our contrivances in the sweet corn bed have reached the flowering stage, unnatural rows or not...and i can see the thickening of two ears ( at least ) on one of them and there will be more if we can keep the squirrels off...i have been applying an organic critter repellant contrived form eggs, crushed red pepper and hot sauce along with a commercial organic repellant i bought from my supplier in maine...our intervention extends well beyond the lives of plants if our contrivance is to flourish...more as it comes up.

cucumber wall

the cucumber plants are filling in the trellis nicely and the vines are spilling out of the bed...there have been multitudes of blooms and some have ( finally! ) begun to show signs of nascent cukes...we are looking at a bumper crop if this comes off correctly...still no sign of cauliflower though...i planted some of the same seeds in my yard on the same day as the ones in the garden and some of them have been up for five days...if i don't see any by the weekend it will be time to replant...i want october cauliflower and will germinate them at home and transplant if necessary...that's what i mean by determined.