asparagus et al

asparagus is popping up in the bed in the back yard...a clear sign it was time to head for campus and open the asprargus bed...i actually resigned from the garden at the end of last season, however, since the asparagus is the last remnant of the perennial garden project on campus and, by extension, among the last bits of kathy forgey on campus i volunteered to attend to the asparagus...

so i drove out to campus, opened the bed, ran a weeding hoe across it and dug back a trench along the asparagus row since asparagus is not the strongest of plants in terms of breaking surface and it appreciates some help...i will fill that back in and add more compost as the season goes on to feed the roots...

there was no asparagus to be seen...only the stumps left behind when i cleared the bed last autumn...they will be along soon enough...

happily the alfalfa made it through the winter and is greening up to feed the bees around june or so ...

unhappily, this row of beds were the first constructed eleven years ago and they are basically falling apart...there needs to be a decision about repair or replacement or removal at some point...

back at home this spud i planted at the bottom of a twelve inch deep container under the lights a month ago is now about eight inches above the top and growing...it can move outside next month and we will see what it yields sometime in june or early july...

the teosinte down there is booming along as well...both plants come from seed i found from 2019...still some viability left in it...

both plants have flowered...this one has silks from two ears it is working on...

and this one is focusing on a single ear so far...seeds? we'll see...

zea mays mexicana II

three days in and we have significant greening...

and the first true leaves on the teosinte...

so i dressed them with earthworm castings ( and, seemingly, a centipede )...gave them a shot of distilled water...

and lowered the light...the winter season has started...we will see how it goes...

just a morphological note

that is a kernel of maize without a husk that has formed just below a stunted flower on a tiller...

which would seem to be a habit it picked up from its ancestor teosinte which was doing the same thing last season.

oh it's zea alright

there is no mistaking it...

and the rescue potato is supported.

what is this? IV

opened up the dark place and looked into the baggies and found five sprouts ready to plant, while the rest would seem to be misfires...we will give them more time to see however i am not sanguine about their viability...

the sprouts i planted five days ago are greening up and the concavity of the first leaf on both of them is a distinct zea feature...they are doing well and i am hoping for some morphological comparisons to known photos of both maize and teosinte...so far all i can say is they are zea of some sort...

so i planted all five..two with the originals and three with the rescue potato...which is becoming somewhat "leggy" under the lights and will doubtlessly be in need of support...happens every time...more as it develops.

what is this? III

while a few more of the hydrogen peroxide soaked seeds are showing signs of viability...

this one is ready to plant...

the unsoaked seeds are showing a bit more movement...

however only one of these is ready as well...

so i prepared some space under the lights...

planted them both and lowered the light until it almost touched the top of the container...the other seeds went back in the baggies and into the dark...will be checking on them on thanksgiving to see if more space is required...and now we wait and see what comes up...something from the zea family...but what? the sprout and root certainly look like teosinte...

simply the seeds do not...we will be checking in and having a look at morphology as things progress...perhaps that will clear things up.

what is this ? II

i am unsure how kernels of alleged hopi blue maize turned out yellow...and i am still uncertain of exactly what this is...however...

in both the batch of seed i soaked in hydreogen peroxide...

and the ones i simply put into a damp paper towel they are the ones showing the most viability...they will be planted and place under the lights in the basement where i am somewhat less than convinced there will be anything more than,perhaps, green leaves and stalks...still we will be giving anything that germinates the opportunity to have a basement season and we will certainly be direct sowing some outdoors come spring simply to see what might happen...and since a basement season is under discussion...

the rescue potato has decided what stems are going to grow and which are superfluous and has begun to sprout more leaves and gain some height...opportunity taken.

what is this?

i planted three separate beds of mixed heirloom hopi blue maize and teosinte this past season...and, incidentally, it has not been a very promisng season in terms of viable teosinte seed...or maize for that matter and that is the point of this post...

teosinte seed develops in husks just like its descendant, however it produces a single row of seed with no cob ( and you can tell by green seed in november that things did not go well...by this time last year i had far more mature seed than this time around )...and there were a number of plants that produced just this...

maize produces ears with multiple rows of kernels ( i know, you know that ) and these ears did as well with three, four, five, and seven rows respectively left to right...

whatever this may be it certainly does not look anything like hopi blue maize...

although there are some "kernels" with a bluish cast to them...

when i took a few off the cob they did look a bit more like maize kernels...however, still clearly not...teosinte and maize can cross pollenate and i have to wonder if that is what has happened here...and i wondered if the seed might be viable...uncertain of how to proceed in finding out...

i used the tesointe/hydrogen peroxide method of breaking dormancy on half by soaking them for twenty minutes and putting them in damp paper towels in a baggie...

and the other half simply went into a damp paper towel...then both into a dark place, and we wait...we will be looking in o them form time to time and , if anything germinates, there wil be an addition to the bsement winter season...

speaking of which, the rescue potato is doing well...more, if anything happens...or even if it does not.

ancestral dna

the teosinte out back is coming along well so far...

flowers have been emerging over the last week or so...

and this afternoon i noticed silks for the first time this season...if everything holds together this bodes well for some ears and, with any luck, replication of ancestral dna through viable seed...i have a store of frozen seed from past years and i am considering mixing some in with this years crop next season in a larger planting to try and foster more genetic diveristy in the seed...we need to get through this season first however so we can put that thought aside until say march 2024 or so...and who knows what may happen before then?