spuds

"modern varieties (spanish: papa mejorada) are light skinned, white fleshed, smooth, and generally larger than local or "native" varieties, which are described a chalo. chalo is used by both quechua and aymara speakers to describe mixed collections of potatoes with many colors and shapes. the word appears in bertonio's (1612)aynara dictionasry (cchalu), suggesting that andean farmers distinguished mixed collections long before the appearance of modern varieties." "farmer's bounty: locating crop diversity in the contemporary world." stephen b. brush p.105 __________________________________________________________ no chalo here...organic certified but definitely a "modern variety"...then again they aren't "light skinned" or particularly "smooth"..."modern" perhaps, but not completely industrialized poatatoes...some of the potato plants on campus had reached the end of the season while others ( second photo ) are still carrying on...i went to campus to do some maintenance ( read weeding ) and decided to bring in the ones that were done while i was there...three plants netted a dozen potatoes ( a symmetrical four tubers each...which is odd but obviously not unheard of ) just shy of two pounds and more to come there and at home...speaking of home, four of the squash plants flowered overnight ( and the blooms have already faded...a lot like the cowpeas when they will flower later this summer [ or early autumn ] cowpeas are self-pollinating..i wonder if squash is...ah...more work )...the last photo is of a newly weeded pgp at about 9:15 this morning...the jerusalem artichokes continue to flower...the maize is doing well and i'm collecting all the gamagrass seed i can find...so far so good.

6-8-2012 photos

the peas in my backyard are blooming which is a good thing...the hopi blue corn and the northern tepehuan teosinte on campus are about neck and neck ( but the maize is younger )...the fourth photo is the "primitive cultivar" ojosa negra...and the bottom photo is three red nordlands and an asparagus spear on its way to becoming a "fern"

Solanum tuberosum

the pgp's season is coming along just fine...the top photo is of some robustly vined chinese yams...both the plants entering their third season have multiple vines out and there are a few plants form errant bulbs here and there which may or may not thrive...the improbable teosinte continues to do well and looks to have good growth...it is far ahead of where it was last year...but it was only up from seed then and it was a very coll spring last year...probably not a fair comparison...but the teosinte form seed that's up is and it is about a month ahead of last year's sprouts...the biggest news today is that one of the red nordlands i planted eleven days ago is up...nine more to go and once one is up the others usually crop up in short order...hopefully a couple of weeks will see the government potatoes up and running as well...the bottom photo is of what promises to be a formidable stand of jerusalem artichokes...i have culled a few rouges this season but nothing like last year...i grew fewer plants last season and seem to have done a more thorough job o harvesting...nothing much turning up in unacceptable areas except one stubborn one in the teosinte bed...so far i'm pleases...geeked even...it will be more fun once the semester is over.