volunteers

it had been raining of and on all morning and i cut the grass between the raindrops...when i went back out to cover the lawnmower after it had cooled i wandered over to the bed on the south side of the house to check on the new york imports...

the berries are coking along just fine so i stopped to reconnoiter the rest of the bed...

the egyptian walking onions i transplanted out of the basement ( they were cohabiting with Jean's puddle wheat ) are adapting...

the jerusalem artichokes don't care what anyone thinks...they are there...try to stop them...

the surprise came when i discovered some volunteer spuds ( four actually )...obviously when i harvested the spuds from this bed last year i missed some...so there they will stay..testament to the fact that spuds are actually perennials much like the jerusalem artichokes they are in bed with...

over in a bed ( there are three...wheat, spuds [with rhubarb of all things], and asparagus and strawberries...more on those in a minute ) where i actively planted spuds, ten of the thirty-three i put in are up...

in the next bed along the strawberries continue in a reproductive frenzy...i have two stolons pinned in the bed to root there and two more pinned in buried pots to root and move tot he south bed and the plants are still producing more..what was three plants will now be at least nine and it is only may eleventh...it could be a long summer in that bed...and i may be searching fro homes for strawberries

finally some of the teosinte seedlings have two fully deployed leaves and will be working on a third and more soon enough...the weather has cooled some and they may stall until it warms...the season, however, is well under way.

classic zea

the shape and stem color of this plant tells me that the teoasinte i have planted is, at least in part, taking hold...from where i stand not all of the sixteen i planted will be prospering...however that is why i planted sixteen...

this one is especially pleasing since it is one of the five i planted that sprang from seeds i harvested from my back yard last autumn...a second generation of northern tepehuan teosinte with more viable seed in the freezer...i cannot find seed for this variety anywhere anymore...so it is a positive development...i question whehter last fall's unusually warm temperatures will recur so the bumper crop of mature seeds from last season may not be repeated soon...then again, things being what they are, the plants may become adapted natives...

the potted tepehuan teosinte that came up from the basement and shocked so badly...

continues to recover with new growth...

and two nre flowers emerging...since this plant had such a head start on the season ans since it is only may the probability of mature and possibly viable seed fro it are fairly good...there will be a yelp if and when i see silks...we are clearly underway...we will see where it leads.

election day...what do the plants say?

the wheat bed is filling in...

the plants are all well established and have multiple leaves...

so i sowed sweet clover seed in the spaces between the varieties of wheat to damp down the "weeds", fix nitrogen in the soil, and feed the bees later in summer...

the spuds in the bed i planted a ways back are starting to pop up...so i put some sweet clover in with them...and with the winter rye as well... and finally, one of the teosinte plants i put in sunday has started to leaf...always an encouraging sign...there is more coming along in baggies that isn't quite ready to plant...and i just put some into hydrogen peroxide to soak...germinating them for the campus garden...but those are different posts.

yams...new growth...a return

that's the first chinese yam of the season...i did not plant any bulbs...however that doesn't mean i didn't miss some last fall when i tried to harvest them all...last year there were three separate vines...we will see what this year brings...

around the corner the teosinte i planted yesterday is beginning to green up a bit...always encouraging ( i know i am pushing the season...but i am a geek )

meanwhile the teosinte plant i brought out from under the plant room lights last week is undergoing some changes...

the old growth, including the flower, has shocked ( devil UV ) and died back...however...

it is also showing good new growth down the stem...

and a new flower is emerging..so there may be a full season fro this plant yet...and, if all goes well...a double tesointe season out back...

and while we are on the subject of unexpected new growth...i put Jean's puddle wheat out at about the same time fully expecting it to end its season that began last october in a puddle of water in the basement...it has other ideas it seems as new growth is up and running at the base..it could be a germinating interloper...however it looks a lot like wheat to me...we will keep an eye out for eats...

finally...i have been rewilding some of the jerusalem artichokes i dug out of the community garden on campus...they are going in in unobtrusive spots where they are unlikely to be interfered with or interfere with anything anyone else is doing...they are native plants...they can still be found on roadsides and in untrammeled areas if you know where to look...they are edible...and, again, native...their range has been impacted by suburban sprawl and agricultural activities ( like herbicides )...reestablishing a native range seems reasonable.

teosinte 2018

these are three varieties of teosinte seed i soaked in hydrogen peroxide last sunday...the top photo is of northern tepehuan teosinte seed i collected from plants in my back yard last autumn and which has surprised me with its insistent viability...the other two are varieties i obtained from the usda last year and all had seeds that were ready to plant...

so i turned the bed again...took a warren hoe to it and raked it as level as i could...

and i planted ten germinated seeds spaced three feet apart in rows space two feet apart..there is more seed that is not ready to plant yet which will be going in probably over the next week...always a nervous time for me...viable seed doesn't always become a viable plant and they have such a long season i need to get them started now to have any chance of viable seed this autumn..and that only if the anomalously warm weather of last fall should repeat itself...there are no guarantees here...i do have ample seed..there will be a season...it is the results that are always in question...

in other events around the yard, at least one of the thirty-three spuds i planted in a bed next to the strawberries and asparagus is up...hoping for more...

the ramp bed is alive with...well..ramps

the leaves of a few of them hadn't shed the membrane from the tube the emerge from and were stuck together...so i helped them out as much as i could without doing too much damage...

the wheat is taking hold well...

and the winter rye is positively lush...we will keep a close eye on the teosinte while we do what we can to keep the rest of the yard under control...it's may...october is only five months away...how many changes in between?