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.

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.

minimalism and abundance

the minimal season i have going on in the basement is doing well if you take the constraints artificial light places on plants that are nothing if not adaptable...the forty cent tomato cage is working out well as an improvised trellis for this mashua and the vine continues to grow and produce new leaves...

this plant has begun copious new growth at the base ot replace the vines that have died back on the trellis...a habit in indoor mashua at least...and one that leaves me wondering how much impact all that energy expenditure will have on tuber production...bound to be some...

while i was moving stuff around to make room ( we will get tot he reason for that in a bit ) i discovered that the mashua cohabiting with the yacon had produced a vine about three feet long that was trailing along the floor...i curled it around the container and moved the leaves up onto the trellis, closer tot he light...

the mystery guest has signed in with some leaves finally...however i am still not ready to make any sort of identification...we could probably eliminate a few things...it isn't maize or teocintli for instance...but what it is...unknown still...

puddles' kids are looking a lot like mom did and their onion pals aren't much less leggy...this will hopefully change in the spring..they also find themselves rather hemmed in by bags of compost and potting mix...

in fact the incipient demise of a local big box store has led to a veritable orgy of acquisition of gardening supplies...compost, potting soil, seed starter mix, grow lights, peat pots...we have laid in a supply that will hod us for a few seasons to come at remarkably little cost...the "invisible hand" that guides "market forces" continues to lower the working population...an unfortunate fact of an avaricious system...however this is a garden blog and we verge on a political rant...we will save that for another blog...you can switch over and have a look if you are inclined to...whether anyone reads them or not i will still rant away...this is the interweb after all.

the kids and a field

down in the basement puddle's kids are "leggy" but robust and seem to be getting along well with their onion friends...they are firmly rooted which bodes well fro an extended season come spring and a move outdoors...

the mashua down there is all coming along well and each plant is evincing new growth...there is hope for winter tubers for spring planting..and the yacon ensconced with the largest of the mashua is looking fairly lush considering it has never seen actual sunlight...we may have tubers..or rhizomes...from that plant for spring as well...

i have been sporting this year's haul of teocintli seed by size and color...there seems to be a correlation between the two with the larger seeds being darker which, i think, can be attributed to the larger seeds having a denser endosperm which will, i hope, mena better viability..i have 182 out of what must amount to around 1000 seeds that look most promising...i will be freezing some and keeping some out for a germination tests later next year...if they sprout they will be in the yard come april...

finally, i was out running around this morning and drove past the former corn field behind the field behind the big box stores and was struck by a couple of things...there has been some precipitation here of late and it has collected in a low spot in the field and frozen...if the changing climate and weather patterns ( tell me they are not an i will mark you down as insensate to your environment ) brings an increase in liquid ( as opposed to frozen ) precipitation ( which likelihood my rain gauge is supporting ) this may be another spot to keep an eye on erosion from...then again...with a cell phone tower planted firmly by the farmer's outbuildings and suburbia encroaching from the other side the field may be "improved and developed" before any substantiating data can be compiled...the industrial food feed stock this field provides may soon have to be imported from brazil or argentina...hot pockets extruded from south american cereals.