chenopodia II ( with a side of potatoes )

that white line in the upper center of the first photo is a quinoa sprout forty-eight hours or so after the seed was planted...the second photo is of a lambs quarters sprout of the same approximate age...there is movement and where there's movement there's morphology...which is what this plant identification project is all about...the wild potatoes are doing pretty well basking in the feeble winter sunlight by the front window...they are slow...they are teaching me patience...the bottom photo is of some better developed quinoa that spent the day reaching for said feeble sun...cold photosynthesis...winter chlorophyll...call it what you want...more as they develop.

transplanting II

aside from working with teosinte, watching it snow, shoveling snow, watching werner herzog documentaries ( encounters at the end of the earth and happy people...both cold weather films...fitting ), and shoveling more snow i have been looking at the wild potatoes...the two i transplanted five days ago are doing just fine but one in the germinating tray was looking a bit spindly so i took it down to the plant room...put a layer of compost in a peat pot...peeled the fabric off the peat pellet...applied the plant to its new home...filled in with potting soil and put it under the grow light for some sustained photosynthesis in hopes that this one too recovers and begins to sprout new leaves...learning about wild potatoes as i go implies that , beyond a general idea of how plants work and what scant information i have found on the interweb, i don't know exactly how these plants behave when healthy...so growth and new leaves imply success...withering failure...i do believe i made the correct move..i am not sure if i did it in time...more as it develops.

thinning and transplanting

the wild potatoes have been up and running for twenty-three days now and i have taken ( with no small amount of trepidation ) the first step in moving them on...i will need the germinating tray they are living in right now soon enough to start some more wild potatoes among other things so i took the two larger ones down to the plant room, put some compost and potting soil in peat pots, peeled back the netting on the peat pellets, set the pellets in the pots, and filled in with more potting soil and compost "hilling" it up around the base of the somewhat leggy plants...then i took them back upstairs and into natural light to see if i have jumped the gun an done more damage than i wanted to...the roots are still safely encased in the peat pellets so i am hoping there wasn't much in the way of root disturbance...the aim is tuber to work with in a few months because i have had zero results with direct seeding in the past few years...more on this success ( or disaster ) as it develops...there are still three more wild potatoes up and i have more than one hundred seeds left...i will start again if necessary...some of the failed kinua seeds had begun to mold in the pellets with the seedlings so i began to clear them out as well...i was going to remove the stunted plants as well but discovered their roots were hopelessly intertwined with those of the larger plants...so the runts stayed...the mold did not.

potatoes in boxes

the wild potatoes seem to be coming along fine...i have cut down their photo period and i am leaving them in darkness at least twelve hours a day...their vertical growth has slowed 9 actually you can see in the second photo that some have lain over like vines...but they seem healthy and they are producing both new growth and new leaves...the images i pull up on line ( a maddening process...you get to see a lot of sweet potato vines when you query "wild potatoes"...wild potatoes do not have smooth, heart shaped leaves...they look much more like a domesticated potato leaf...which only makes sense ) show the plants very low to the ground unlike the domesticates...as long as they continue to develop i will assume they are healthy...the storage project may be another story...the ollalas ( third photo ) and the early blue ( fourth photo ) are still solid but they are showing increasing numbers of sprouts...they have been in boxes for nearly four month which is the outside limit in traditional storage time...we still have a few month to go and i may be asking a bit too much of them...the roja narino in the fifth photo were only brought in in october and may stand a better chance of seeing spring...the only thing to do is maintain the best possible conditions and wait... i have the yema de huevos in a separate box waiting for them to sprout before i replant...they stand a fair chance of seeing the community garden as well to go along with some yukon golds...a domesticate/domesticate ancestor/descendant pair to have a look at.

kiuna

kiuna is a quechua name for quinoa..so is chisiya mama ( mother grain )...at least according to "lost crops of the incas" they are and possibly more appropriate than the spanish quinoa ( what do you think coach? )...whatever you choose to call them the plants seem to be doing fine under the light along with their andean contemporaries the wild potatoes...the potatoes continue to sprout new leaves and the kiuna leaves are developing slowly ( you can see just to the right of center in the third photo a kiuna leaf with part of a seed case still attached )...i have zero experience with either of these ( although the kiuna seems to be growing itself without much of any intervention from me...the potatoes have my attention riveted )so i am all questions and finding answers is proving somewhat painstaking...no one seems to grow wild potatoes...or, at least, they aren't talking about it...that's fine...i had zero experience with teosinte either and i have learned as i have gone along to the point that i am secure in my recognition abilities and i know how and when to plant it...trial end error with a good deal of error...but that's what makes the lesson stick and i am growing my data base on kiuna and the agonizingly slow growing potatoes...while we are discussing trial and error, the yema de huevos in a basket project is winding down its first planting and there is some trepidation as i contemplate digging around for tubers to replant...they are dying back steadily and i wonder if there was any success..the first planting may be the last...either way we will be learning... growing "wild" plants indoors is always perilous and whatever the outcome we will have gained something...the good news is that it is about the right time frame for them to have set tubers...the potatoes that they produced outdoors were not very large which is normal....even small tubers will grow another generation so there is a possibility of success...this was an improvised experiment necessitated by the tubers refusal to be dormant...either way they would have been lost...this was an attempt to preserve them for another outdoor planting...more on this when harvest ( hopefully ) time rolls around.

more leaves, true leaves

the wild potatoes and quinoa are well up and running now so i took the clear plastic lid off the starter box because the potatoes were beginning to get a bit "leggy"...exposing them to conditions as they exist in the house and to natural light in the day has done some good...the wild potatoes ( top two photos ) have slowed their growth and almost all the plants have begun to develop a third leaf...feed the roots, slow the verticality...i want tubers...meanwhile some of the quinoa plants have shed their seed cases and are developing true leaves...both species are tolerant of cool temperatures ( in the 60s fahrenheit in this household ) and they aren't water guzzlers so a low humidity won't be a problem as long as i keep on top of the moisture level in the peat...soon enough i will be thinning the quinoa and then i am uncertain about events...it grows to between three and six feet tall with a root system as deep as the plant is tall...if i pot it for the duration of the winter the roots will surely be pot-bound by spring...a chance we will have to take i imagine...so far so good in my first experience with either plant...of the two quinoa is the much easier one to find information on...few people seem interested in growing wild potatoes...i've found a few but i am mostly wo9rking from experience with domesticated potatoes...with luck their behaviors aren't radically different...if they are it will be empirical data to add to the pile...and a few posts as well..more as things progress.