two different directions

"unseasonably warm" is what they might call it in the media, and the signals seem mixed but are actually pretty clear...

there are still green ears on the teosinte, however since there have been a couple of hard frosts i am thinking there will be no more viable seed produced...i have harvested around two thousand seeds so not an issue for me...

i did not take it all though...i allowed some ears to ripen and shatter just to see what might happen...

over in the east bed the asparagus is dying back...

while the winter wheat and rye are enjoying the weather...

there is still a green pod on the field peas i left standing when i planted the grain beds...

there were not many pods to begin with, however hopefully the half dozen i found will render enough viable seed to run a small bed in the spring to grow more seed for autumn...

and meanwhile, i had found some sprouted spuds in the basement that were not going to make it much longer so i put them in small pots outside to see what would happen...despite the frosts they have begun to green up in true spud fashion and so will be coming in for the winter under the lights...when the weather dictates, not before...unnatural but necessary.

polar vortex? whatever you call i it is cold.

at least the snow in the rye bed...

and the wheat bed...

reached a sufficient depth before the cold arrived...we may be in fair shape this season if this holds...certainly the snow is not going anywhere today.

january twenty-seventh outside and in

stumpy, the ex-locust tree, tells me there has been more snow overnight..

and so do the fir trees which were snow-less yesterday...and i am in favor of snow even with the navigational impediments it delivers...

because cold has settled in for something of a stay ( more there in a bit )...

the good news is there is no more green showing in the winter rye bed and there is 5.125 inches of snow cover...

and there is minimal green in the wheat bed because of the 5.25 inches of cover there...so snow is good...the forecast says so...

it has its twists and turns...no doubt about that....i suppose there have been fifty-five degree ( fahrenheit ) temperature swings over five day periods before...still...unsettled seems a good term...

what happens outside is clearly our of my control...inside i have the ability ( and responsibility) to intervene in the lives of plants i am responsible for and this spud was ion the verge of outgrowing the peat pot i was in..it was time for a move...

so i drilled some drainage holes in an old five gallon bucket, being sure to knock down the burrs it left in side so the water would actually drain...

i did not knock the soil off the roots when i removed the plant but you can see the roots are a shade longer than the plant is tall..the had pretty much found the bottom of the peat pot...

i planted it about two thirds of the way down the bucket so i can back fill as the plant grows to stimulate tuber growth...experience tells me not to expect much in terms of size...probably just a few drops i can plant outside in spring...that will be good enough for an indoor winter season in completely unnatural conditions...i set the bucket on another upturned one under the lights by the mashua..which is doing well itself...

puddles' kids look a lot like mom did right about this time of the basement season...leggy and falling over...still..they and the onions are green and i do believe they will be around for the outdoor rejuvenation their mom saw come april...

and over in the opposite corner the cohabiting yacon and mashua are looking robust as well...the basement season has expanded a bit but is still under control...iot that far to spring even though a casual stroll outside might convince you otherwise.

microclimates and snow?

the internet says it is seventeen degrees ( fahrenheit ) here...my thermometer disagrees and has an ambient air temperature that is seven degrees warmer...microclimate? either way it is well below freezing and the snow cover has stabilized with an icy crust after two days of above or near freezing temperatures and rain...

there is considerably more green showing in the rye bed...

the green is showing because the rains of the past two days have pockmarked the surface and erased 1.9375 inches of snow from the bed's surface...

there has always been green showing in the wheat bed...

the surface of the wheat bed is also pockmarked but not nearly as deeply as the rye bed and it has only lost 1 inch of snow cover...i am assuming the ambient air temperature was nearly the same for both since they abut one another, so how to account for the difference...

i am uncertain...the beds are set back in the yard by a pair of locust trees and the one by the wheat bed is a few feet closet than the one that is near the rye bed...so its branches overhang the wheat bed more fully than the one by the rye ( and shade the bed more after they leaf...fortunately later in spring ) and so may have deflected more of the rain from the wheat bed than the rye...grasping at straws? probably...still there was an uneven amount of snow loss over the surface of two beds located next to one another and i am human so i need an explanation.