bees in the ( hawthorn ) tree

the hawthorn tree has been impinging on my sense of smell since late last week ( sending out previews to the pollinators ) and today the blooms began to open...and the bees were there in force..so, while endangered, they are not extinct ( good news for us...let's try to keep it that way ) they were busy as...well..bees...the last five photos are of smaller pollinators...probably solitary bees...might be leaf cutters although they don't look like it to me and it seems a bit late for mason bees...whatever their identity they are present...the honey bees are not working this shift alone.

helianthus and vine

the top six photos are a cross section of the seventeen vines the fractured chinese yam had deployed since the original broke...some have leaves already deployed...others are biding their time...all of them are bent on growing, flowering, and reproducing...there may be need for a stronger trellis before the autumn arrives...three tomato stakes and a piece of jute twine will, i fear, prove inadequate to the need...the yam shares a bed with the relentless jerusalem artichokes ( bottom photo )...the sunchokes were expected...the yam was not...obviously it was biding its time even more patiently than some of its vines..they are both perennial...they are both invasive..in places both are classified as "noxious weeds"...they are both prolific reproducers...the jerusalem artichokes through the massive array of tubers it sets and the yams, while they do set tubers ( very deep..a pain to harvest ) reproduce through aerial bulbs that grow on all those vines...one below ground, one above...what worries me is what if the compliment each other...reach some sort of reproductive symbiosis? this is a dangerous line of contemplation..one supposes they would compete...however they each have their own reproductive niche...the competition may only be for sunlight and the vines can grow as tall as they need...we will watch with some interest...tinged with a bit of plant anxiety.

rocked

the temperature here today is supposed to be pushing ninety degrees ( fahrenheit ) and there is no rain in the forecast so i took a quick run out to the community garden mostly to add to he rock mulch on the teosinte which i did ( first through sixth photos )...after shot of water yesterday and a coolish evening and night the established teosinte has lost the leaf curl it had developed from transpiration ( seventh )...after i added more rocks to the mulch i watered the plants again in an effort to keep them hydrated through the day...in fact i watered the entire bed for the first time this season...the potatoes ( eighth ) are looking robust and i want to keep them that way...in fact the whole bed looks fairly good ( ninth and tenth ) although i am not very worried about the jerusalem artichokes...the asparagus ( eleventh ) is also prospering and it continues to flower ( twelfth ) and...like the one in the last photo the last of the spears are beginning to "fern"...feeding the roots and reproduction are summer pursuits for them...new spears in the autumn as the weather cools.

planted replacements

the seeds i had germionated for replacement teosinte in the garden told me it was time to plant ( first two photos )...one was trying to root itself in the paper towels ( third )...so i carefully picked each on out of the toweling and planted them in holes as deep as the root ( fourth through seventh )...i watered them thoroughly and took some of the rocks from the failed teosinte to create a partial rock mulch..i will be adding more today to help them along..it will be hot and i cannot get out to the garden every day...even with the mulch the soil is drying and the established teosinte plant was showing some leaf curl from transpiration ( eighth photo ) ...not the jerusalem artichokes in the last photo though...robust natives unfazed by the heat

first day of june out back

first day of the month and a short tramp around some parts of the yard..the top photo is the obligatory tesointe photo ( since it's my blog and my yard )...the mashua blanca in the second photo is a native from a bit farther south in the hemisphere ( we are internationalists ) i am not really sure if the egyptian walking onion in the third photo is from egypt...but it's working on "walking " anyway...the winter rye is flowering cyclically as it comes of age ( fourth ) and the alfalfa is beginning to bloom ( fifth )...another interesting event ( from an internationalist gardening frame of reference ) is going on in the bed at the south side of the house...the seventeen leaves on the broken yam vine are continuing to grow and feed the roots ( sixth )..leaves are not the only growth going on however...i have posted photos ( seventh through twelfth ) of six of the eight new vines that have sprouted from the broken one over the last week...not wasting any time and the plant will put considerable energy into this since it is the beginning of the reproductive process...my best guess is there will be more than eight vines...the one growing out of the base of the old vine ( seventh photo ) is insurance against a break lower down the vine that might do in the seven sprouting higher up..prudent plant..finally the last photo is of a nascent bell pepper...the bloom has been fertilized...there are still pollinators around.