late winter losses, gains, staus quo

the spuds i transplanted into five gallon containers eighteen days ago have all pretty much gone south and i haven't a clue why...

the bisons...

and the blues i found chitting away and planted at the same time are all doing just fine..so i consolidated them under one light to give the better exposure and we will be trading carefully when transplant time crops up...loss is expected, not condoned...

the yacon and mashua are well...

puddles' kids are still green, leggy , and taking after mom...they will be seeing sunshine in the flesh in a month or so ( in fact all these plants will be...the basement season will shut down soon )

even the viny house plant has taken to the light and is exhibiting new growth...

out back the depths of winter would seem to be fading and a seasonal change brewing...

warm as the ambient temperature is, the ramp bed is still frozen solid under the leaf mulch...look for stirrings later this month...

stumpy's dryad's saddle has seemingly wintered over successfully...

the new york imports haven't been exactly inert all winter but they are greener today that they were in say, january...

the clusters of aerial bulbs the egyptian walking onions left behind haven't bee still either and the shoots seem a bit longer today...

poking around in the winter vetch that served as onion cover this past winter i discovered a less social bulb all on its own...still doing what comes natural...

and last but certainly not least, the winter rye...

and to a lesser, but still infinitely better degree than two years ago, the winter wheat, have come through the sub-zero ( with snow cover ) and single digit lows ( without snow ) and will, hopefully, be productive and done by late june...so we are good if wondering about the spuds...things will be moving outside...ramps will be up...and it will be time to dig the bed for the crop of teocintli soon enough...the move outside is near..and about time too.

into the void

puddles' kids are acting just like mom did last winter..it must be genetic...

the yacon and mashua are evincing new growth...

and the january spud is happily filling its side of the container...

six days ago the spud on the left in this photo...

looked like this...

and the one on the right had this look about it...there has been progress here...

cohabiting with garlic hasn't harmed this spud over the past week either...i am uncertain as to whether it helped...but i don't see a need to shuffle the population around either...

and now we move on into the post-organic arena...there was a bag of "america's #1 finger hat" aka bugles lying about...a close personal friend...and big fan of puddles and the kids...called it a "colorful bag" which is a true statement...colorful and very busy with the promise of fun ( what else could a "finger hat" be but fun? )...someof us are killjoys however andf i just had to take a look at the nutritional ( or, in this case, non-nutritional ) label...

there's fat..but no trans fat or cholesterol..okay...also more salt than you can shake a stick at...a touch of protein and barely discernible vitamin d, calcium, iron or potassium...one would presume there would be some nutritional value to something that is a "crispy corn snack"...a supposition until you take a shufti at the bottom of the label where it boldly states "ingredients: DEGERMED YELLOW CORN MEAL...and the nutritional mystery is solved...general mills removed it...probably because it complicated the process of extrusion...and to add insult to injury the very bottom of the label tells us we are eating gmo...the fine print says "learn more at ask.general mills.com"...any of you who has the desire can go there...i do not especially care to be propagandized at the moment...maybe later

expansion and progression

for as much as things change down in the basement there is still continuity...puddles' kids for instance...still green..still leggy...still looking remarkably like mom...and they continue to send up new sprouts that fall over...

the yacon is evincing new growth...albeit slowly...slow is what yacon does...and the cohabiting mashua has vines everywhere...

the two mashua plants across the room continue to fill the trellises and vine over the sides of their containers as well...

the garlic is getting leggy too...there will have to be some rearranging of location and lighting soon...

all three of the spuds i planted eleven days ago and that are the reason the season is "expanded" have now deployed leaves...i am assuming there are roots involved as well...more containers and rearranging to compound the complexity of limited space and lighting ( there was a reason i wanted a "simple" season down there...desire and intention are often frustrated )..it is the way of things..added complexity and increased energy always attend expansion...

and thirty-eight days into its season the spud i planted in january is a green and robust nightshade that needs to be back filled a bit more...not "leggy" in the least...compact and leafy...both indications of the possibility of good tuber production...we will see in a couple of months...although these are blue potatoes which are notorious ( in my experience ) for just going on and on...we may need to intervene eventually...as if we haven't already.

don't ask me why i thought this would be a "small" season

found these while i was rummaging around containers in my room...plants have a schedule that does not always mesh with my desires and that is just the way it is..these were not going to make it much longer without some assistance...so...

so i put each one in a peat pot and pretty much buried it in potting soil and gave each a shot of water...

i put one in with the garlic ( yes you are seeing it..that population has expanded...doing fine too )...

the spud i planted twenty-eight days ago is doing well...so well in fact that i back filled the container before i gave the solo plants some company...

eventually everyone will need their own space...but for the nonce they can practice their social skills...

from puddles' kids to the mashua and yacon all are green and robust...it is warm in the plant room...it is a room of its own down there and it has its own heat a/c vent so when the door is closed ( to keep the cat out ) the temperature goes up...especially when the heat runs in sub zero weather...so i gave everyone a fair drink of water to keep them on a roll...more as the population relentlessly expands.

january twenty-seventh outside and in

stumpy, the ex-locust tree, tells me there has been more snow overnight..

and so do the fir trees which were snow-less yesterday...and i am in favor of snow even with the navigational impediments it delivers...

because cold has settled in for something of a stay ( more there in a bit )...

the good news is there is no more green showing in the winter rye bed and there is 5.125 inches of snow cover...

and there is minimal green in the wheat bed because of the 5.25 inches of cover there...so snow is good...the forecast says so...

it has its twists and turns...no doubt about that....i suppose there have been fifty-five degree ( fahrenheit ) temperature swings over five day periods before...still...unsettled seems a good term...

what happens outside is clearly our of my control...inside i have the ability ( and responsibility) to intervene in the lives of plants i am responsible for and this spud was ion the verge of outgrowing the peat pot i was in..it was time for a move...

so i drilled some drainage holes in an old five gallon bucket, being sure to knock down the burrs it left in side so the water would actually drain...

i did not knock the soil off the roots when i removed the plant but you can see the roots are a shade longer than the plant is tall..the had pretty much found the bottom of the peat pot...

i planted it about two thirds of the way down the bucket so i can back fill as the plant grows to stimulate tuber growth...experience tells me not to expect much in terms of size...probably just a few drops i can plant outside in spring...that will be good enough for an indoor winter season in completely unnatural conditions...i set the bucket on another upturned one under the lights by the mashua..which is doing well itself...

puddles' kids look a lot like mom did right about this time of the basement season...leggy and falling over...still..they and the onions are green and i do believe they will be around for the outdoor rejuvenation their mom saw come april...

and over in the opposite corner the cohabiting yacon and mashua are looking robust as well...the basement season has expanded a bit but is still under control...iot that far to spring even though a casual stroll outside might convince you otherwise.