high summer II

comparing our garden variety jerusalem artichoke ( second photo ) with the free range ones ( top photo ) i find they are only marginally shorter....thus mollified i move on to say that while i did find a bit more damaged corn the mutilate dears are not as numerous and there are still multiple undamaged ears ( third photo ) the tassels are drying and the ears will be ready to pick within the week...the down side is that while there are still ears there are still squirrels too...the cherry tomatoes have been ripening well all season and they have been being harvested...the larger varieties are not happy with the weather and have pretty much stalled in a half-formed green state...only warmer weather will cure this...or picking them green and letting them ripen off the vine...still they are small...climate looms large in the garden's behavior...it has been a banner year for potatoes everywhere including the community garden...cherry tomatoes are all that's working in my yard as well...curious to see what the jerusalem artichokes do.

garden produce I

pickling cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and sweet corn.

maize and friends

the sweet corn and the jerusalem artichokes next door are doing pretty well...i imagine the corn would like temperatures a bit warmer ( right there with you coach ) but it is maturing all the same the ear in the second photo is fairly large...my hand span ( third photo ) is a bit over eight inches so that ear is a round a foot long...a good size and we'll see how it ripens over this month ( it should be done before august is )..the rest of the maize isn't slouching along either so we should have some colorful ears soon...particularly if the cross pollinate...mor eon that if we aren't preempted by the squirrels.

no more random than nature

the sweet corn ( top photo )is coming along well...which is good news...whether for the community or the squirrels remains to be seen...the mashua ( second photo ) isn't wasting away...but it's nowhere near its possible six feet in height...it likes cooler weather but the cooler weather it likes in at altitude in more equatorial regions...it may be photo period issues that have kept it low to the ground and it may perk up as autumn nears and the days get shorter...the jury's still out on tubers..the maize in the third photo is nearing its finish...ditto the squirrels...finally the jerusalem artichokes are in full flower...tubers next month for those who are interested....a mix of plants...but not particularly random if you look close.

new garden II

the ears on the red and blue maize already have tassels and will be moving on to kernel forming directly...now the sweet corn is beginning to play catch up...there are eras emerging on several plants but these two are the most conspicuous ones...there will be more on the thirty odd plants that are in the beds and we should have ears that are ready next month...more cucumbers are popping up along the beds and their number will only increase...there are a lot of blooms both trailing along the beds and intertwined in the trellis with the beans...we have a lot of prodigious producers growing out there...produce will be in season for several more months...stop by.

late corn disappoints an adage

the central stalks of the eighty day sweet corn in the community garden are pushing over three feet in height forty-five days after the seed were planted...the peculiarly spaced dense yellow #2 in the field behind the big box store is woefully late in growth and has not reached anything like the "knee high by july" adage i grew up with...so is the sweet corn better? well...as far as eating goes it certainly is..it was also planted about a month earlier than the field corn so it's not a fair comparison...that could lead into a rant about the fairness of processed and extruded food...but it's a holiday and who has time? all down the rows the industrial crop is lagging behind...chalk it up to a cold spring and a remarkably wet june that has water still standing in the fields and dead patches of drowned crops...we have already remarked on the yellowing impact of the rain in the garden...industry is not exempt form climate either.

boom town

the sequential harvest of potatoes just went a bit deeper into the season with the addition of two mare late starters in the spud irruption...looking like early blue to me...the more rhyzomes the better as far as this gardener is concerned...the pole bean vine in the second photo has found the maize ...which was the whole idea...buffalobird woman is in the garden...along with some fine sweet corn in the third photo...the bottom photo is pod corn posing in front of maize, pole beans, and squash...the three sisters are building a home.

the long and short of it

last year the sweet corn ( first photo ) reached a height of around six and a half to seven feet..the hopi blue ( second photo ) topped out at over eight feet in most plants and one spectacularly tillered ten footer...the jerusalem artichokes are pushing up over eighteen inches right now and will hold their own height-wise with the hopi blue...eight to ten feet of big yellow flowers and then multitudes of tubers...the cucumbers ( forth photo ) probably won't get anywhere near the height of the others...but will make up for it by vining profusely and producing loads of succulent fruits...there should be quite a bit of production in these seven beds...the plant population to date breaks down like this: asparagus-12, brassica ( unsure to this point if it's kohlrabi or cabbage...but they are surely brassicas )-4, cucumbers-27, garlic-6, jerusalem artichokes-9, maize-40, mashua-2, onions-7, peppers-4, pole beans-1, potatoes-40, tomatoes-6, wheat-13. 179 plants up and running...if it's possible we would like to collect as much harvest data as possible...numbers and certainly weights...since this is a community garden and open to the public that my be impossible but we will collect all we can to try to establish some sort of productivity index for future comparison...information about food production seems as vital as the food itself if we are going to make this a viable and sustainable project.

maize

the beds in the community garden are getting greener by the day and chief among the green providers is maize...the sweet corn in the second photo is of an eighty day variety and will be ready in august...more on that as it develops...sharing as well...the plants in the two last photos are showing telltale signs of being hopi blue maize because they are tillering...the one in the third photo has a tiller on the left and the one in the last photo on the right...each should produce a secondary stalk and an ear of corn...we are not familiar with the habits of dakota black or apache red, but this is behavior that we have seen before and that means the seed from the maize we grew last season in the old garden is viable...a connection between the old and the new...and a traditional heirloom crop...more as it grows and the ears "blue"

zea mays

one large, rounded leaf and a narrow pointed one are emblematic of the zea mays seedling...as the seedling grows the leaves separate and the rounded one begins to elongate until it too is narrow and pointed...these nark the bottom of the stem and , soon enough, more leaves will appear in succession up the central stalk...then support roots will emerge...we have thirty-five seedlings in various stages of emergence today in every bed they were planted in...i know where the sweet corn is because i planted it...cynthia ( she is the one smiling up form the bed she's planting in the planting day post ) handled the apache red , dakota black ,and hopi blue so i am unsure exactly where each variety is...however the should be at least a representative of each out there...the hopi blue was planted in seed form an ear we grew last season in the old garden so the old mixes with the new..continuity is an important facet of gardening...persistence too...we are chock full of that...things are booming on 35th avenue...tough as it is why don't you set aside the books and stroll over form the library sometime...maize loves visitors.

five days...

...is all it took for seeds we planted on planting day to find their way into the sunshine...thirteen sweetcorn ( two of them in the top two photos...unmistakably zea ) and five cucumber plants ( one in the third photo ) have arrived to keep the jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, garlic, mashua,tomatoes, peppers, and turnips that are already up and running company...good news...soon enough there will be abundant green in all seven of the beds and colorful flowers on the corners...this season is growing more inviting all the time and it's barely underway...stop by ...the plants will be happy to see you.

planting day preperations: maize

yesterday i put a gallon of tap water in a milk jug and left the lid off to let the chlorine evanesce...today i pored about a cup of it into each of four containers and labeled them appropriately...then i put fifteen seeds each of apache red, hopi blue, and dakota black maize, as well as thirty sweet corn seeds, in to soak until they are planted tomorrow...the hopi blue seed is from maize we grew in the old community garden and it represents some continuity between the old and new sites...these are open for anyone to plant in the bed of their choice...we will be establishing a three sisters' guild of maize, beans, and squash...in any open bed space ( if any is left ) or directly into hills established by clearing sod off the soil directly behind the beds...the traditional native american combination of plant carbohydrates and proteins should do well.

corn replant

one of the sweet corn plants got nailed by something and a couple didn't bother to show up at all...since it is still early enough i decided to try to replant a few so i soaked some seeds and planted them in the empty spots in the bed...actually the sweet corn is doing well...just wanted it to do better...the red nordlands are beginning to bloom...not quite the intense blooms of the yema de huevos potatoes in my back yard...but not at all shabby either...the garden looks fine this evening and as the season moves along it will be full of changes...nothing is static out there...life is movement...stay tuned as things hum along.