blooms

concord grapes...

seedless grapes...

asparagus...

winter rye...

winter wheat...

alfalfa ( amazing how that worked out...the alfalfa leaf cutter bees arrive next week )...

winter vetch.

eleusis in the back yard

however there is a cmapus trip to relate first...out early to have a look and take care of a few things...

over in the asparagus bed there are new spears...

continued "ferning"...

and multiple blooms...there may be "berries" this season...

seven of the nineteen spuds i planted behind the asparagus have come up...

while over in my "official" bed...

there there are now four garlic plants up and running...

with easily as many volunteer potatoes...

i popped up one of the unsprouted garlic cloves and it seems to be inert...this may change...i have never attempted spring garlic before and, given current results, probably will not again...that too could change...

the alflafa is expansive...

and my favorie correspondent will be pleased to learn it is stil scoffing at any sort of limit...

i have a number of potatoes chitting away at home and so brought five to the campus to plant...

i added two to the asparagus bed population...

then moved some rocks around the perimeter of the "official" bed and add three to the volunteers there...after which i headed home...

where i began by checking on the teosinte seed i soaked a few days ago...thirty-three of sixty-five have germinated...a shade over fifty percent and there may be more...so the seed is viable and it is time to prepare a bed...

out back the einkorn wheat is coming along...as well as some native growth that needs tending to...

there are emergent seed heads on the rye by the locust tree...

and the winter wheat on the compost pile...

is "keeping up with the ryes"...eleusis comes to the back yard...

the container spuds are in full leaf and the containers will be back filled shortly...

the strawberries are producing...

and there are signs of grapes to come on the vines in the fir trees...there's more...however that is another post.

backyard and basement

the eight rows of einkorn are doing well...three leaves apiece at least and a few niore months to go...

the winter wheat in the bed has recoverd some...however it is not nearly what was planted last autumn...it is time, i think, to give that bed a break...some winter barley perhaps...conversely, the wheat i planted on a compost heap is booming right along...a line of evidence buttressing the "midden heap" theory of the origins of agriculture?

there is some volunteer rye by one of the locust trees...

more asparagus is appearing in the east bed...

ther ramps are doing well though none seem prepared to flower this year...no seed? well on can hope they bunch...we wil know come september...

the mooseberry bush is every bit as verdant as the alfalfa...

meanwhile, down in the basement , the teosinte's silks have become a bit more pronounced...

and the effort to bloom is progressing...to what result i do not know...i am not sanguine about seed...this is not a natural environment...still..dna will try...

and my seed potatoes arrived today...red, blue, and yukon gold...due to limited space i am considering foregoing cutting most of the tubers this year and simply using them as drops...a weekend project since they are going into the campus garden and i want to be able to park at the garden...more on that later.