Showing posts with label zea mexicana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zea mexicana. Show all posts

Saturday, May 28, 2022

at home with zea

the teosinte i direct seeded is doing well and the plants have produced a third leaf...meanwhile...
the seeds i soaked in hydrogenperoxide a few days ago have germinated and seriously need to be planted...so...
turned a couple of beds...
spread some compost over the top...
and planted thirty-nine seedlings...tomorrow a trip to the community gardens to see what is up there and, perhaps, planting some hopi turquoise maize here...squash will need planting soon...and then there's tomatoes...did i leave out the spuds? they are up and running in gardens and here in containers as well...the season is finding some traction.

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

autumn is on the way

the genetically spliced soy beans are telegraphing the approach of autumn simply by chromatic signal...
the pods are changing color as well...
those spliced in genes may keep the herbicides from killing the beans...that pig weed out in that field tells me the "weeds" are evolving without laboratory help...or, perhaps, in response to the lab help the beans are getting...
there's volunteer corn out in the bean field too ( and let me say here i did not wade out into the field...i stayed on the grassy berm by the road...the volunteers were simply conveniently located at the field perimeter )...
it was fairly stunted in dense yellow #2 terms, however it did produce ears and, a first in my volunteer corn exoerience...i could feel kernels under the husks...not sterile...not hybrid? who knows...they're doing wonderful things in the lab these days...
everyone i could reach had ears...everyone i could touch had kernels...so something new learned from a bean field today...
here at home the wheat is booming along...many plants have a second leaf now...
and the berry greeter in the rye bed...
has found herself in tall company...
there are still some fat clusters of teosinte ears out there...
however most have begun to split open revealing the individual ears...
green seed is still the norm...
although some ears have finished up...i have harvested a small amount of seed...anticipating more...
beyond that, grapes continue to ripen...
and mooseberry is doing just fine thanks.

Friday, September 10, 2021

spuds and grains

headed to the community garden early this morning and found the behemoth maize flowering like its counterparts in the back yard...however, this is not the zea i am writing about or why i went out there...
spuds were my concern...last trip i noted four plants that were finishing up and today was harvest...
there were some fair sized tubers down there...
predation caused some loss, to what i have to think was insects since i dug these by hand and they came out of the ground this way...
despite the losses four plants netted five pounds six and a half ounces of a mix of red and german butterball potatoes, including some small drops for seed...better than a pound a plant...the gardener is content...
out back there is a wealth of green zea mexicana ears...
with green seeds...
a few however...
are finishing up...
so it is safe to say, i think, that there will be a harvest of seed this year...
out in the beds the winter wheat i planted last monday has produced a legion of seedlings...so we are off to a good start...
and after a lonely three days of patient waiting the greeter berry in the rye bed...
has rye to meet and greet...next up, garlic...when it gets here...and rye grass at the campus garden.