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.

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.

winter wheat, an indoor season, and a bureaucratic note

it is cold in my back yard...then again it is cold in most everyone's back yard in most of the country so don't get the idea i am complaining...

the winter wheat finally has some snow cover...but not enough to cover everyone...i am uncertain about spring outcomes...we will simply have to wait...

it is christmas eve...something like four degrees or so ( fahrenhait ) and there is still a touch of green in the asparagus ( yes it has mostly died back...but not all )...just saying bureaucrats...

downstairs where it is about sixty degrees warmer there are four tesointe plants coming along well...time to transplant to larger homes soon...

the michigan blue down there is tall and leafy...productive is another issue...another "wait and see"...a lot of this is wait and see...that's how it is today...more as it comes up

success/failure/i'll go on

the michigan blue spud i planted in the basement eighteen days ago has cleared the top of the five gallon bucket that is its winter home...

and is coming into leaf nicely...we will see what we get by way of production somewhere along february...

the teosinte seeds i soaked twenty-three days ago failed entirely...perhaps it is too soon after harvest...or, perhaps, i just picked out seed that was not viable...so i pulled some seed from 2021 and soked it just to be sure i wasn't losing my touch and they have responded...

sprouts and one with a developing root...so there should be teosinte in the basement as well this winter...it has done well down there in the past...just don't hold out hope for ears ( i won't )...

outside things are fairly quiet...there is still some green in the teosinte ears...

however, when green ears freeze the seeds die and become skeletal in appearance...and they are not viable...

i looked around anyway nand did find some ears with what i believe are viable seeds...

probably the last gleanings of the season which gives me near a thousand seeds...

the winter wheat is not looking all that happy...again there has been winter cold before any snow cover to speak of and this is not ideal...one wearies of driving in snow...one wishes for snow for the wheat...a winter dilemma...

note to the bureaucrats: there is still green asparagus in my yard....

the serendipitous peanut ( left by one of the jays i am thinking...it was not knowingly planted ) died back with the hard freeze and i finally remembered to have a look...

i found and cleaned nine legumes in the roots...

they are now thoroughly dry and will be stowed away fro future planting...knowingly this time ( although there may be more volunteers next season if someone here continues to leave raw peanuts out for the jays )...next up...planting teosinte...probably within the next week.

the vagaries of winter wheat

my entire 2021 harvest of hard red winter wheat easily fit into a fairly small plastic bag...disappointing in terms of flour...still enough to plant for 2022...

so i put it in a burlap bag and whacked it with a stick...

which did a reasonable job of threshing the grain...

there was something of abreeze up so i did do some winnowing...not perfect, however i am planting this wheat, not milling it...

i dug the bed again and raked it tolerably level...

then i broadcast the seed and raked it in about a quarter inch...

and doused it with some water to give it the idea that it might be time to get moving...there is a possibility of rain tomorrow they say...that would only help...now we wait and see...if it comes up...how cold the winter is...if there is enough insulating snow ( oh we got snow last winter...seemed to be all in february...unfortunately the cold befgore that had done in most of the wheat...these things happen )...and then what the weather next spring is like...a lot of contingency...rye is next on the ganda.