a proliferation of ears, flowers, and silks

both northern tepehuan teosinte plants have produced an abundance of ears and seeds continue to form...the weather is holding so far so there is hope for viable seed...

every plant of both varieties has produced multiple flowers...no shortage of pollen...

to find the silks that have irrupted on all the plants...no frost in the foreseeable future...stay tuned....this may be interesting.

fallen over

limited input tonight because of limited events...when i got home i found that one of the teosinte's tillers had laid down ( first photo )...it isn't broken ( second )..it's actually a behavior teosinte will indulge in, however usually when it is a bit more mature and going to seed...a mechanism to get the seed as far from the parent plants s possible ( not that they offspring would be competition for an annual...just a way to extend range )...so no harm done actually...so i applied some jute twine to bring it back upright ( third ) and it is fine ( fourth ) i will need to anchor it to something sturdier than the tomato cage it is attached to right now..a grade stake seems likely...the fifth photo is of a cluster of potato plants supported by a toamato cage...what is important ( for me anyway ) are the potato fruits in the last three photos...ten so far...not counting chickens before that hatch...but still geeked.

zea

a quick zea census...zea mays in a bucket in the frst photo ...second is northern tepehuan teosinte hitting about two feet tall...third is the three tillers it has produced ( so far ) and the fourth is of the elegant support roots it has begun to develop...the last four photos are a sampling of the zea may parvaglumis plants out there and the tillers they are producing...i see no sign of support roots there yet...or in the corn in a bucket either for that matter...this variety of teosinte has a much longer season and will, no doubt, develop a bit more slowly...there will be support root...in the teosinte and in the bucket too...they are zea after all.

maturation

just a very quick trip around a couple of places in the yard after a brief rain shower...the first two photos are a morphological study of maize ( first ) and teosinte ( second )...they are related and there is a strong family resemblance...the third photo is of emmer wheat and the husks seem to be growing lighter...and thickening and hardening as well i imagine...they were planted in march...it may be that the season is reaching the end...it certainly seems so for the pacific blue stem ( fourth )...that is ripening wheat and no mistake...they are volunteer plants growing from seed that hit the ground last summer at harvest so they are by far the oldest spring wheat out there...only makes sense they'd be the first to ripen...time to find the sickle and make sure it's sharp.

rocked

the temperature here today is supposed to be pushing ninety degrees ( fahrenheit ) and there is no rain in the forecast so i took a quick run out to the community garden mostly to add to he rock mulch on the teosinte which i did ( first through sixth photos )...after shot of water yesterday and a coolish evening and night the established teosinte has lost the leaf curl it had developed from transpiration ( seventh )...after i added more rocks to the mulch i watered the plants again in an effort to keep them hydrated through the day...in fact i watered the entire bed for the first time this season...the potatoes ( eighth ) are looking robust and i want to keep them that way...in fact the whole bed looks fairly good ( ninth and tenth ) although i am not very worried about the jerusalem artichokes...the asparagus ( eleventh ) is also prospering and it continues to flower ( twelfth ) and...like the one in the last photo the last of the spears are beginning to "fern"...feeding the roots and reproduction are summer pursuits for them...new spears in the autumn as the weather cools.

planted replacements

the seeds i had germionated for replacement teosinte in the garden told me it was time to plant ( first two photos )...one was trying to root itself in the paper towels ( third )...so i carefully picked each on out of the toweling and planted them in holes as deep as the root ( fourth through seventh )...i watered them thoroughly and took some of the rocks from the failed teosinte to create a partial rock mulch..i will be adding more today to help them along..it will be hot and i cannot get out to the garden every day...even with the mulch the soil is drying and the established teosinte plant was showing some leaf curl from transpiration ( eighth photo ) ...not the jerusalem artichokes in the last photo though...robust natives unfazed by the heat