early blue

some of the thirteen early blue potato plants that comprise the second generation since april...this is the first in the basement...robust growth sums it up fairly well, i think.

yema de huevos and teosinte

the only viable seed in the last batch of nortern tepehuan tesointe i soaked came form a plant i grew in my backyard...after a few days it is beginning to look like a grass...the other three photos are of a a third generation of yema de huevos i have grow since last april...the last two in the basement...seed potatoes for spring if all goes well.

growth III

the early blue potatoes that had reached eight inches in height three days ago have added about an inch of growth a day and are nearing the one foot mark...they were robust plants during the outdoor season and they seem to be just as hardy indoors...twenty-four days in and about forty six before they begin to set tubers...right around the first day of spring...another twenty to thirty days of growth ( and i wonder if they will bloom ) puts a harvest in the third week of april...well timed for the spring planting...if it all goes well..a successful harvest of yema de huevos is no guarantee of a repeat performance with them ( there are ten yema de huevos up in baskets down there ) much less another variety...hopes are high...expectations are cautiously muted...altogether there are twenty-one potato plants up and running with more in pots while i wait for some sprouts...there will be more planting and space under the lights is at a premium...the seed potato business is becoming complex.

solanum acaule and teosinte

the home grown teosinte is straightening up and there is a bit of green showing at the tip...another grass plant on the way ( i hope )...under the lights next to it the wild potatoes continue to grow...and still at an agonizingly slow pace..i am still in very unfamiliar waters here and my expectations are tempered by not really knowing what to expect...either i am phrasing my search queries obscurely or there isn't much information about growing wild potatoes indoors...i am hard pressed to think this is a first-of-its-kind experiment...someone must have done this before...simply cannot find them...well...we will soldier on until we reach some sort of climax...stay tuned for details.

six more weeks of winter is normal on ground hogs day...

...but i don't really care at the moment...went to the basement to check the spuds and turn on the lights...while i was down there i decided to check on the teosinte i put in baggies thirteen days ago...i wasn't expecting much and while the store bought seeds are showing some signs of movement as the seed cases begin to split i was not sanguine about he seeds that came from my backyard plants...when i opened the baggie however i found i had a second generation going on...at least some viable seed was produced in northwest indiana in 2013...let me be clear...no one else has to be geeked about this on any level...i am geeked enough for the planetary population...i planted the seedling in a peat pot and ensconced it under the grow light with the solanum acaule...later i will put it in some natural light upstairs...we will see how this critter does...and we will see if we get any second generation plants outdoors in the spring...there were shattered seed ears everywhere they grew last autumn...turned in a paper and found a second generation...so far it has been a pretty good morning and it's only five o'clock...have to wonder how this is going to balance out.

nexus in winter

a few months ago i posted a photo of nature reclaiming a sidewalk "improvement" running along side the field behind the big box stores...my assumption is that nature is still reclaiming it but winter has slowed the process down a bit...the plants that were growinf between the cracks in the side walk are most likely still there...and all the water in this snow along with the continued expansion and contraction ad the water thaws and freezes will help break up the concrete even more thoroughly...but for now there's a couple of feet of snow on the ground and not much is showing above it beyond some weeds along the border ( and we will be looking more deeply into the definition of "weed" this coming season...if the definition of weed is a plant that is inimical to human purposes in food production [ i absolutely refuse to consider anything that disrupts a manicured lawn a weed ] and there are plants typically regarded as weeds that can attract and harbor beneficial insects and reduce insecticide inputs then are they weeds or allies...and what if they're edible? it gets more complex the deeper you go...human activity tries so hard to reduce things to their component parts that we miss connections...deductive reasoning is a short circuit, sherlock holmes aside...we will try to be inductive here...forewarned is forearmed ) and a forlorn "available" sign and a seemingly misplaced telephone junction box...in the hazy distance you can see the streetlights and an office building hoping for commercial company...and the big box stores never move..even when they fail they will be repurposed...it was quiet out here...not a lot of shoppers today...perhaps that's a sign there will be another crop out here in the spring.

last day of january in the iuncg

the iu northwest community garden presents another wintery prospect on the last day of the month...haven't been able to get out here for a couple of weeks and was pleased to find everything fine..significant drifts around the beds...two and three feet deep...there is no sign of the strawberry bed in the bottom photo but it's there...i think...the only green i saw was the winter wheat poking up through the snow...not dormant yet and probably won't be if it has held out through all this winter...about forty-three days until tesointe seeds go in...winter is flying by.