quiet thursday evening

there is always movement in the yard...but sometimes it is barely discernible...there is a need to pay attention...to be native to the yard and it's not always a simple thing to do...changes can be subtle ( and i was never very good with subtle ) to the point of being overlooked...i am not an extraordinarily gifted gardener but i do pay very close attention to a number of plants and plant families i have become attached to...i notice changes in those at least...the corn in a bucket project is moving along ( first photo )..the stalks are all showing male flowers ( second ) and the female flowers have appeared on the ears ( third) soon enough there will be kernels...the teosinte has deployed many male flowers:

however there are no females to be seen...a waiting game is being played...across the yard the stems feeding some of the potato fuits have died back ( fourth ) signaling the time to harvest has come...they are in a paper bag now softening prior to being processed...there will be more on that along with the processing of their cousins the carolina horse nettle fruits later...shifting back to teosinte, it is doing well however it is not nearly as tall as it was last season...it has been an odd summer...alternately very wet or dry...hot or cool...and, perhaps, the oscillations have the plants perturbed...still they are fine( fifth ) and i threw something in to provide scale ( sixth )...there will be a loud whoop when the first teosinte silks emerge...stay tuned.

blooms, seeds, resilience, death

took a run out to the community garden after work to do some watering and have a look around and got a reminder that as you move from macro to micro specific detail can be disturbing...the asparagus( first photo ) is robust and producing a few berries ( second ) which are ripening well...i am looking forward to asparagus from seed...down the row some cobb lee potatoes are blooming ( third ) and there are potato fruits in the garden ( fourth ) in the garden...the jersualem artichokes ate also doing well ( fifth ) and are back to blooming ( sixth )...more seed hopefully...the shattered teosinte ( seventh ) is still showing how resilient and determined plant life can be...we may see actual leaves yet...finally the last four photos are the disturbing part i was on about...the odd spider that has been lurking in the jerusalem artichoke blooms has had its patience rewarded with a kill...looks like a bee to me...and it was stil feeding when i stumbled on it...camera shy ( it rarely would budge outside the flower petals before ) it went out of its way to avoid the lens, scurrying around the back of the flower...and resolutely taking dinner along...i am pleased, at times, to be part of the macro element of the garden...

seeds

wandering around the back yard i can see we are definitely headed for autumn...i see a nascent ear in the corn in a bucket ( first photo )...which is one sign...the nasturtiums are blooming away as is their wont ( second 0 and producing seeds ( third on the left along with ramp seeds and potato fruits...more on that in a second here )...the first ramp seeds are in ( fourth ) you can compare their seed structures with the onion ( fifth )...the sixth photo is onion seed on the left and ramp seed on the right...not a perfect match but close...there are potato fruits on the vine ( seventh ) however i found four on the ground ( eighth ) and brought them in to "soften" in a paper bag ( much like ripening a green tomato...traits run in families )...this started me thinking about the carolina horse nettle fruits i bagged in july and which were pretty soft when i last checked...so i got a couple out ( ninth ) and threw in a potato fruit for scale )( tenth ) and then cut one open ( eleventh )...they strongly resemble cut open potato fruits ( twelfth, a photo from 2015 ) and the seeds are very similar ( horse nettle thirteenth and potato [again from 2015] fourteenth )...they process was, perhaps unremarkably the same, the air reeked of solanine...my hands itched...and those two small fruits produced approximately one hundred and forty seeds...common elements of both fruits..i have more horse nettle fruits and when the potato fruits i have brought in we will be doing a side by side comaprison...give it a few weeks.

my turf

the top two photos are what a stand of jerusalem artichokes are supposed to look like closing in on the middle of august and a solar eclipse...including the blooms in the third and fourth photos which are losing or have lost their petals and are maturing into seed heads...not probably the most aesthetically pleasing process, however a natural one...the fifth and sixth photos are some potato bloom out back and the seventh is of some fruits i hope the blooms will emulate...still sixteen of them...no attrition yet...and ten of those i have netted so i am hopeful of mature fruits...the eighth photo is of some aphids feeding on the sugars in the sap of the northern tepehuan teosinte...and the last photo is an opportunist waiting to eat.

netted

a couple of potato plants on the south side of the house bloomed earlier in the season and all they left behind was broken stems where the blooms failed to become fruits ( first photo )...over in the northern reaches of the yard another plant has bloomed ( second ) and has produced, at last count, sixteen fruits ( third and fifth )...so in an effort to keep them from critters and to contain them should the come off the stem i netted them in critter net ( fourth and sixth ) which is a strategy i have deployed before in the community garden two seasons ago when the blue varieties went fruit mad and exploded in fruits ( whose seeds are still in my freezer )...it has been successful before and so i can hope it will be again...meanwhile the nasturtiums ( seventh ) continue to bloom and go to seed ( eighth and ninth )...there will be another generation of home grown mashua cousins...and if ic an conserve some of those tubers the family will grow out back again...finally a photo of a fresh jerusalem artichoke bloom next to one that has begun the transition to seed head..they are members of the sunflower family and produce prodigious amounts of seed...that is remarkably difficult to germinate..i will collect seed again and try to grow a plant from seed...again...however i will replant some of the harvest to be sure.