rain

rains spaced at regular intervals this spring have saved a lot of watering and have things moving right along...the long awns and bulbous seed tell me that the seed head in the second photo ( once again i have had to screen out the vegetation in the background out with a sheet of paper to get the camera to focus on what i want to post ) is wheat...but no in the bed of wheat..this is a volunteer from last season...there are a number of them...and, if they survive the starlings, i will be adding them to the harvest...the third photo is winter rye by way of comparison...there will be grapes ( fourth photo ) and their tendrils are being grabby any way they can to support the vines ( that is actually one of the vines that was mistakenly cut the living vines are being supported by...nothing really goes to waste out there )...the potato patch and the wheat bed are both very green and robust...and there is excellent growth in the teosinte bed...the bogota market mashua is doing fine as well...as long as the rains continue and don't turn violent there will be no need to water out there...that is good news...more from the yard and the community garden as the holiday weekend continues.

more spuds

fifteen of the potato tubers i planted on the seventeenth of last month are up and running...and since it is mother's day ( happy mother's day to all you mothers ) and the weather is warming i have begun to move spuds i had growing under the lights out into the real world to finish up...i brought seven up this afternoon and planted them around the ...edge of the bed and intercropped with ( but not close to ) the garlic...the one in the sixth photo is much more vine-like plant which must be a mechanism triggered by the relatively low light downstairs...it is not a plant from true seed it is a clone...just another adaptive behavior from a plant..it will not become unvine-like now that it is outside so we'll see just what it does and how it produces...while i was out there putting down compost for the spuds i gave the teosinte i planted yesterday a side dressing of it just to give it a little push...it has been a busy weekend in the gardens...it is go time.

spud news

the first of the potato tubers i planted ten days ago is up...i did not mark all of them because 1) i was really only concerned about the locations of the blues and the new varieties from the usda, and 2) they will all be identified ( and eaten ) at harvest anyway...so the top photo could be of a red pontiac , or a german butterball, or an all red...choose your favorite...ot os surely a spud...you can tell by the leaves...the wheat has topped the frame of the bed...eight inches tall or so in thirty-three days...so far it is fine and, gratifyingly, the plants continue to tiller...the bed will fill in nicely if all continues to go well...the second year ramps are booming along as well...hoping for both blooms and bunching...and seeds if something doesn't browse them again...finally the green manure bed is also liking the spring weather...new zealand white cover, winter vetch, and winter rye all coming along...they will be blooming and going to seed soon enough...a local source of green manures to spread around...more spuds goin gin this coming weekend and tesointe as well probably...then on to may and another stab at feeding maize to the squirrels and in june...bees! we have barely started.