colors

it is november nineteenth and some nighttime lows have already been some twenty degrees below freezing...so any reasonable person would expect the tomatoes to be long gone...and they would be correct...an autumn brown is the hue today...

the teocintli is done as well...

some ears are empty...

some are in the process of shattering...

and some are splitting open in preparation...

i brought in a few late season ears that had not split open yet ( i am letting the shattered and split ones go in their natural cycle to see if it will reseed itself in this climate )...

they rendered some plausibly mature seed and some fairly green ones as well...brown and green in microcosm...and while we are talking green...

the winter wheat has lost no chlorophyll...there are cold hardy folks out there

neither have the egyptian walking onions that are headed into their second season...

nor have the aerial bulbs which have "walked" and are sprouting, rooting, and doing their best to burrow into the soil for winter...

the leaves on the new york import strawberries are still verdant...they will not be intimidated by winter...and while beries are the focus...

even at this late date the native berries have still been trying to produce berries...i am skeptical that there is anything to pollinate these lonely blossoms who are admittedly looking rough...still...don't tell me dna isn't relentless...

we should not think ourselves burdened with the limited pallet of green and brown though...there are other blooms holding on to vestiges of more vibrant days...

and the hawthorn berries are inviting the birds.

non-standard gardening

it is four days past the "average" first frost date here and there is nothing approaching frost temperatures in the ten day forecast...which suits me for now...

because the ears on the northern tepehuan are still stubbornly green...

there are still green ears on the zea mexicana as well...

more are maturing as the days shorten however...

so i brought in a few of the "ripe ears"...

the "ears" are not ears in the sense of the ears it descendant produces, but rather clusters of single rows of seeds in a husk...

this one yielded twenty-seven seeds and the season total is now up to four hundred and thirty-three harvested...if the weather holds i may reach a thousand...we will see.

mid october out back

the bed of winter wheat i planted last month is filling in well...

in the bed i planted nine days ago, the rye...

looks to be doing fine...while the wheat side of the bed...

is looking a bit thin...hopefully this will improve if the weather holds...

back in the first bed the sweet clover is coming up as well...wouldn't expect a lot of activity from this until next spring...a slow starter, it produces small yellow blooms that some find "sweet"...

in the zea world the zea mexicana is still pursuing its autumn droop...

the plants have a multitude of green ears and seeds...

although more of the ears are turning a tan color and shattering...which is only natural...

so far i have harvested three hundred and thirty seeds with an unknown quantity on the ground around the plants...i have been dividing the seeds into lots to use for next season's crop and to freeze for the future..just in case there is a catastophic failure one year...we will have back up seed...

all the ears and seeds on the northern tepehuan plants are green...and seen to be in no hurry to mature...we will see if they do before a frost terminates the race...

hardy souls that they are the native berries out there continue to bloom and produce fruit this far into autumn...they will stop that with the frost however they will remain green under the snow...we will look in february or so just to see...

this may look like just the stubble it is...

underneath there is a multitude of robust tubers however...these and a few more along with a frying pan and some canola oil and there will be lunch...

we are moving around front ( where all the showy flowers are ) to have a look at some exemplary workers...hard at it this deep into fall.

late august in the back yard

something more than a half inch of rain overnight ( and it is still raining some ) isn't unheard of here in august however the alternating patterns of heat and wet/cool ( last week we got two and a half inches of rain[in my yard anyway]overnight...that is a bit more anomalous ) are not the norm...i have been mowing the lawn at least weekly which is not a usual august activity...usually hotter and drier by far...i have not been doing much watering of late...

alternating patterns of weather are not impacting day length though and some of the plants are taking a cue from that in terms of where their season is...the mashua is beginning to show signs of fall colors and will need to come i before a hard freeze...probably after a frost kills back the plants...

there is maize ripening on the stalks...

there is also maize being eaten on the stalk...how much will actually reach fruition is a matter to take up with the birds and squirrels...we know this was a possibility when we planted...predation is not unexpected...

blossoms continue to transform into beans...

there are tomatoes in varying stages of maturity...

and the hot banana peppers are getting hotter...

the jerusalem artichokes are still blooming and there will be tubers soon enough...

the zucchini is in flower and producing late season squash as well...

the ramps have seeds cooking away...

some are done and i have begun to collect them as they mature..they are small...

and closely resemble onion seeds which is no surprise considering they are both from the allium family...cousins...

the growing numbers of tiers of support roots...

and zea mexicana ears turning from green to maroon and brown are signals that at least some of the teosinte is finishing up...the northern tepehuan has a much longer season and i don't expect ears before late next month and no seed before october...

i have begun to harvest mature zea mexicana seed from some of those maturing ears however...i will test for viability in the spring...

the frog in the corn seems to still be at home there...whether this will persists as the corn begins to die back is uncertain...the benefit of blending in may turn to a cost of standing out...he may pull a houdini...