five varieties

it's march...time to plant spring wheat...so i turned in eighty pounds of compost...and raked the bed half way level ( the unturned patch in the corner is home to a volunteer spud...and there is a volunteer onion up in there too ) and began to plant...

the five varieties of wheat i am planting in this bed are, hard red which i have an ample supply from last season's crop...

dwarf syrian...

and pacific blue stem, both of which also originated from last season's crop...

the ancient emmer wheat...

and the equally ancient einkorn which i finally found a supplier for ( people seem loathe to part with this seed )

i broadcast the seed into its specific area...

raked the seed in to a depth of a quarter inch or so by hand...

and marked the locations with stakes...now we wait...the seeds know what to do..next stop, critter net and bird tape...as needed.

volunteer bed

yesterday when i got home it was sunny and ninety-two degrees...today it is about forty degrees cooler and there is rain being added to may's total...it is spring at the south end of the inland sea after all...none of this stopped me from having a look around the yard and, as usual, surprise waited...the volunteer spuds in the jerusalem artichoke bed now number ten plants( fourth and fifth photos )...those came as a surprise some time ago and they are doing well...i had planted a pepper plant( sixth ) in the opposite corner of the bed and put a tomato cage around it mostly to keep track of it...when i walked over to inspect it i was a bit incredulous...however i looked again and there was a chinese yam vine securely wrapped around the cage ( seventh and eighth )...i know it's a chinese yam by the leaves ( ninth )...the astonishing thing is there hasn't been one in this bed in the last two seasons...i had assumed they had been shaded out by the jerusalem artichokes...however it would seem that radically pruning the mulberry tree to allow more light onto the bed stimulated a stray aerial bulb that had gone to ground, or a dormant root ( the can store a lot of starch and have ample energy when the conditions are ripe to grow )...so...yams it is...another trellis is in the offing...they vine aggressively and are as invasive as the sunchokes...elsewhere the cool weather will probably stall the teosinte...still the northern tepehuan ( tenth ) and the zea mays parvaglumis ( eleventh ) both have deployed third leaves...their season is taking root...over in the ramp bed some of the plants are clearly dying back ( twelfth ) at the end of their season...yet five ( so far ) have begun to grow stems ( thirteenth and fourteenth ) for blooms...five flowers would mean a lot of seeds to scatter...here's hoping it goes well...finally there are any number of ears of hard red spring wheat ( fifteenth ) emerging to join the pacific bluestem ( sixteenth ) there will be many ears...eleusis in the back yard.

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.

not a viticulturist...

...as anyone familiar with last year's grape travesty will be well aware..irregardless, there are grapes in the trees ( vines have spread from the elm tree into the fir tree at the back of the patio as well...lots of trees in the jungle...carbon offsets )...hot and rainy here in hoosierland...the teosinte in the third ( taken july 1 )and fourth photos has grown quite a bit in the last five days...just like maize it thrives in hot and moist weather...there is an ollala potato that has joined the spud bloomfest out there while the mashua in the sixth and the yacon in the seventh photos carry on the parade of tubers...the bottom photo is proof that i am not completely biased against either cereals or plants that reproduce above ground...the spring wheat is about ready to harvest...threshing and winnowing anyone?

outback

there's progress out back as well...the potato seedlings are doing well...seven are up ( although i have some question about the viability of one of them...we'll see )...they will be transplanted to larger container soon enough...the mashua out there ( second photo ) has been left alone ( so far )and will, i hope, be producing both blooms and peppery tubers ( and i wonder how similar they are in flavor to nasturtium flowers...aim to find out )...the hail damaged yacon in the third photo is recovering well and there are five robust northern tepehuan teosinte plants caged in out there ( fourth photo )...the winter rye, for autumn cover crops...and spring wheat...because i like the way it looks...in the fifth photo are ripening as the alfalfa in the sixth continues to bloom...pole beans have grasp the pole in the seventh photo and the heirloom tomatoes in the last photo have begun to turn purple...so far...so good..still a ways to go...more later.