cinco de mayo

the jerusalem artichokes in the community garden have been joined by the ones in the back...they have found the sun in increasing numbers and the lemon balm and creeping charlie that thinks it will be colonizing the sunchoke bed are in for something of a setback...soon enough the helianthus tuberosum will be shading out anything that pokes its head up...no need to mulch these for weeds....the black tip wheat in the second photo is beginning to tiller and by early july will be rife with seedheads...the spring wheat in the third photo is following suit and the two relatives seasons should evolve fairly closely temporally..i don't see any dixie clover, but there is a multitude of hairy vetch plants among the winter rye that are setting nitrogen...there is rather a large stand of the green manures and cover crops left out there...there is more planting to do as well so some will be turned under for organic matter for the tomatoes among other things..there are plans to leave something of a stand of them out there however, they will be allowed to flower and go to seed to serves as a source of seed for the other gardens around later in the season as the produce is harvested and the beds prepared for winter...we will be using whatever sites and resources come to hand in an effort to sustain the gardens more locally.

verticality

out to campus early this morning to put a bit more compost in the beds ( time pressure is building a bit and there's a way to go before planting day two more beds and about a ton and a half of compost before we are ready )...coincidentally it is the last average frost date in these part and the plants that rare up and running seem to have intuited this and are beginning some vertical growth...the top two photos are ollala potatoes, leafing out and moving up...the third photo is of the relentless jerusalem artichoke..juvenile at the moment for sure but there is a foot of growth there ( at least...more if the climate co-operates )by the end of this month...nearly full size by the end of june and in flower in july...looking forward to that...even the frost bitten russets in the bottom photo are reaching up...and so are the turnips there too...there is obviously some thinning to do...there is some an aversion to that but human intervention in the lives of plants is the bedrock of gardening...so we will bite the bullet and thin...more will be up...more verticality to come.

beds

always ups and downs in gardening ( a microcosm of life ) and today was no exception...we succeeded in installing a fifth four by eight foot bed and have enough time before planting day to establish two more ( that will pretty much cover the back border of the garden )...the unfortunate news is that when they tore down the house next to the old garden they tore down the remains of the old garden as well...including the two boxes that were left there and the entire strawberry population...bummer...when i wandered over there i was told in no uncertain terms that "everything on this property " belonged to the construction company that was doing the demolition ( including, seemingly. the rest of the soil ) and that i should find somewhere else to be "bro"...yeah...a "bro" would have left the boxes..well..mea culpa...the delay was mine not theirs so there will be more construction between now and the twentieth of the month and there will be some direct planting along the back side of the established beds as well...bumps in the road will not preclude a season...just make the community more determined...there are more ollala potatoes leafing out nicely ( third photo ) and that stalled german butterball that made a fool out of me thursday has sprung into leaf as well ( fourth photo ) more construction ...more plants...more season to come...we will not be deterred.

may day in the gardens I

my home weather station says it is a forty-seven degree ( fahrenheit ) damp, rainy day...and the weather has put paid to my contention that the german butter ball potatoes would be in leaf the next time i set foot in the garden ( first photo )...so much for my prognostications so far this season...i am bound to be right...eventually...the weather has not stopped the ollala potatoes however...they are growing apace and are more verdant every time i visit ( second photo )...the jerusalem artichokes ( third photo ) now number five plants...they are natives and scoff at just about anything the climate can throw at them..i don't call them relentless lightly...they will prosper, i think...the wet weather has kept the arborvitae well watered and that is a positive good for any number of reasons including the fact that i haven't checked to see if the spigot is able to supply water yet...i will be out there doing some construction and moving this coming weekend and, if my brain cells co-operate, i will be checking it then...the tree demands water its first season and so it shall be...even if it comes in gallon jugs...more saturday.

may day in the gardens II

i am still inordinately pleased to find the perennial teosinte back and growing...there are a few new sprouts in the old stand today...even though they seem to be much farther towards the perimeter of the stand than they were last year...and their multiplication is encouraging...when i unmulched the stand i started last season it had already sprouted and the shoots were so "leggy" that i was unsure if they were teosinte or if the wheat grass had invaded the zea's space...today the plants are beginning to look much more like teosinte and the purple coloration of the stem is a dead giveaway...so the newer stand has wintered over as well and that makes me doubly geeked...the asparagus is particularly robust this season...already a dozen spears have been harvested and shared and there are ten more on the rise...when the season is over and i let the plant s"fern" to feed the roots for next year the seven plants usually produce twenty-five spears and the some new purple ones in the autumn as the weather cools...perhaps this season will see a larger population...there is more green in the pgp today as the wheat grass really begins to green..the eastern gamagrass is still a pastel green...where it is green...that will begin its season in earnest next month...no sign of spuds yet...the weather needs to warm a bit...they will be in by month's end.

may day appendix

the first photo is a top view of the ollala potatoes...the second is some of a multitude of turnips...the third is the stand of transplanted garlic that has adapted to its new home well and the bottom is one of ten black tip wheat plants.

relentless

the jerusalem artichoke that i found saturday has been joined by four more of the cohort we planted on the twelfth of the month...there are four more simmering in there and they will be up soon enough and that both pleases us and raises concerns...they are relentlessly invasive natives and the issue isn't getting them to grow, it is getting them under control..the first year's experience with them ( 2010 ) resulted in fourteen plants producing something around a thousand tubers that grew out from the plants in around a five food radius...it is impossible to find them all and every tuber spawns a new parent plant the next season...they will colonize anywhere so we will need to be attentive...you have to find them and uproot them..if you try to hoe them into submission you just have a bigger problem...like mickey hacking up brooms in fantasia only to find himself beset by myriad brooms, every piece of a tuber will spawn a new plant...seriously invasive critters and to be treated cautiously ( they are controllable...i removed them from the pgp last spring...one tuber at a time...took a few weeks )...they will be eight to ten feet tall with bright yellow blooms ( bottom photo...as if it weren't obvious ) and will produce crisp, sweet tubers from late august on...i am partial to them fried but they work well in casseroles or salads and are a fair substitute for potatoes in most dishes...we should have plenty to share.