asparagus et al

asparagus is popping up in the bed in the back yard...a clear sign it was time to head for campus and open the asprargus bed...i actually resigned from the garden at the end of last season, however, since the asparagus is the last remnant of the perennial garden project on campus and, by extension, among the last bits of kathy forgey on campus i volunteered to attend to the asparagus...

so i drove out to campus, opened the bed, ran a weeding hoe across it and dug back a trench along the asparagus row since asparagus is not the strongest of plants in terms of breaking surface and it appreciates some help...i will fill that back in and add more compost as the season goes on to feed the roots...

there was no asparagus to be seen...only the stumps left behind when i cleared the bed last autumn...they will be along soon enough...

happily the alfalfa made it through the winter and is greening up to feed the bees around june or so ...

unhappily, this row of beds were the first constructed eleven years ago and they are basically falling apart...there needs to be a decision about repair or replacement or removal at some point...

back at home this spud i planted at the bottom of a twelve inch deep container under the lights a month ago is now about eight inches above the top and growing...it can move outside next month and we will see what it yields sometime in june or early july...

the teosinte down there is booming along as well...both plants come from seed i found from 2019...still some viability left in it...

both plants have flowered...this one has silks from two ears it is working on...

and this one is focusing on a single ear so far...seeds? we'll see...

zea mays mexicana IV

the smaller of the two teosinte plants under the lights in my basement...

has irrupted in silks and is beginning to show signs of blooming...this has happened before and i am not sanguine about ears or seed much less viable seed...still i claim the right to be geeked by the whole thing.

zea mays mexicana II

three days in and we have significant greening...

and the first true leaves on the teosinte...

so i dressed them with earthworm castings ( and, seemingly, a centipede )...gave them a shot of distilled water...

and lowered the light...the winter season has started...we will see how it goes...

zea mays mexicana

while i was rooting around in the plant room downstairs i came across some teosinte seeds from 2019...so i took five of them and soaked them in hydrogen peroxode for twenty minutes to break dormancy ( or attempt to...no idea if five year old, unfrozen seed, would be viable ) and put them in a dark place in a baggie wrapped in damp brown paper towel for a couple of weeks...

and a reasonable forty percet actually did germinate...

so i planted them in a container of garden soil and gave them a healthy watering...

and lowered the light...if they develop well i wil be planteing some of this seed outdoors in spring rather than thaw out a batch...stay tuned for develpments if you're interested

natural? unnatural? new natural?

something like a four degree difference from one side of the yard to the other...or it might just be the thermometers are not calibrated the same...one suspects they were never completely accurate to begin with...that does not conceal the fact that it is near or above fifty degrees ( fahrenheit ) here on the fifteenth of december and that is unusual..or would have been in the past...it may just be what is these days for whatever reason you may wish to attribute it to ( bound to be some deniers out there )...

warm enough that the berry plants i rescued from my old truck before i sold it have decided it's safe to escape the netting i put over them to keep the new puppy ( it has been a busy autumn ) from digging them up ( a terrier, she likes to dig and fresly turned soil is irresistable ) and seek sunlight and evince new growth...admittedly they stay green all winter and are cold hardy...still, they generally hunker down afer november until march...so there is movement in the yard...

and in the basement the rescue potato is doing well...

as are the zea plants...i begin to suspect that, despite the oddly shaped seeds, these are teosinte...they simply do not look like maize...so..it's december and, for the most part, quiet...we will see how the remainder of the month goes weather-wise and what the yard does...the basement would seem to be prety stable for the nonce.

oh it's zea alright

there is no mistaking it...

and the rescue potato is supported.

what is this? IV

opened up the dark place and looked into the baggies and found five sprouts ready to plant, while the rest would seem to be misfires...we will give them more time to see however i am not sanguine about their viability...

the sprouts i planted five days ago are greening up and the concavity of the first leaf on both of them is a distinct zea feature...they are doing well and i am hoping for some morphological comparisons to known photos of both maize and teosinte...so far all i can say is they are zea of some sort...

so i planted all five..two with the originals and three with the rescue potato...which is becoming somewhat "leggy" under the lights and will doubtlessly be in need of support...happens every time...more as it develops.

what is this? III

while a few more of the hydrogen peroxide soaked seeds are showing signs of viability...

this one is ready to plant...

the unsoaked seeds are showing a bit more movement...

however only one of these is ready as well...

so i prepared some space under the lights...

planted them both and lowered the light until it almost touched the top of the container...the other seeds went back in the baggies and into the dark...will be checking on them on thanksgiving to see if more space is required...and now we wait and see what comes up...something from the zea family...but what? the sprout and root certainly look like teosinte...

simply the seeds do not...we will be checking in and having a look at morphology as things progress...perhaps that will clear things up.