spud shrub finishes up...sort of

the spud shrub that had been booming away in my basement since january...

has finally decided that the season is over...sort of...

for plants that put so much energy into leafing that the whole thing looked like part of a hedge they produced a fair haul of basement tubers...obviously the shrub was composed of a number of differing varieties...

just to keep things straight, there wasn't anything there that was going to win a ribbon at the county fair...still...there will be more potatoes grown from these...

what really took me by surprise was this...at the very bottom of the container i found one of the original tubers i had planted four months ago and it was in such solid shape ( usually you can find them but they are shriveled having depleted the stored starches ) with so much of its original stored energy intact... and shoots and roots everywhere...

that i stuck it in a peat pot, watered it , and put it outside with the transplants..if it takes it gets its own container...there are half a dozen more that i started last month down there that will be transplanted outside tomorrow...then there's the drops from the basement and some red pontiac seed potatoes to cut, callous, and plant...along with the five up at the community garden the outdoor spud season is moving along...looking or blooms and fruits before august

early may out back

we had a quarter inch of rain yesterday which was the first of the month in my back yard after seven and two tenths in april...the plants are not arguing...

the spuds i moved outside a few days ago are doing well and are probably ready to move into the sunnier climes on the south side of the house...i thought i might have to cover them tonight however the forecast has changed and they will not need a frost cloth until friday night...unless things change again...

nothing else that is up and running will pay attention to frost...the ramps will no more pay attention to it...

than the onions will...

the tallest rye has added another foot of growth since last measured and frost won't inhibit it...

or the wheat which is coning along as well...albeit more slowly...

the elder asparagus is as tall as the rye and showing signs of beginning to "fern"...this plant needs one more season of root growth before it can be harvested...

the younger asparagus, with a greater need to fed the rots, is already farther along the "ferning" path...

the "seedless" red grape vines are coming into leaf...

as are the concord vines threaded all through the elm, firs, and the catalpa tree by the back patio...the birds will be happy, if no one else...as the weather warms seeds will be going in and the populations will expand..look for more spuds moving outside by the weekend.

the news isn't always good

anyone who checks in here with any regularity may recall how pleased i was to find the leaf cutter bees nesting in a bee house i put out when i set the cocoons out to hatch last june...yes there were the inevitable earwigs nesting in there too but there were bees and that was what mattered...i took the bee house down in november and per the recommendations of the people i purchased the bees from, i stored it in my daughter and son-in-law's unheated garage...and today i went to reclaim the bee house and bees...

obviously at some point in the past six months or so the garage became not quite unheated enough...these things happen...nature can be uncooperative in terms of consistency in temperature...and three of the ten leaf plugged tubes the girls filled hatched out...including the one she is so diligently working on in the first photo...

biased as i am about the bees i cannot fine it in me to be overly upset about expired earwigs...

however the bees made me very unhappy...

so i hung the house with the seven intact tubes back where it was last season..it is early but needs must when the devil vomits in your kettle...we will see how it goes...

in somewhat more upbeat news..these three spuds i started under the lights in the basement...

all had roots protruding thought he bottoms of the peat pots they were in...

and, as anticipated, they were all pretty well pot bound as well...

so i cleaned out three containers...

and gave them new homes for 2020...i left them in a spot that will get some morning sun but will be mostly shade through the day to harden off for a while before i move them south to the sunnier part of the yard...a mixed gardening bag today...nothing unusual about that...hopefully the bees will do alright..and the spuds too...there will be more of each over the next month as transplants come out of the basement and the batch of cocoons i ordered in january arrive in june...there will be alfalfa blooming by that time and, perhaps, the leaf cutters will find some potato blossoms to gather pollen from as well.

doom

this bed on the south side of the house has egyptian walking onions...

assorted "native plants"...

and a colony of strawberries along the northern edge...

as well as a number that escaped over the wall to the soil outside the bed last season...and there was good reason for that escape...

because these are making their yearly return to the ancestral bed...the onions and the berries will be fine...hardy souls...the native plants are doomed however...because these will turn into these...

densely packed plants eight or ten feet tall with large , yellow flowers ( members of the helianthus family )...shading out anything foolhardy enough to venture near them...the berries and onions needn't worry over competition from the natives...

elsewhere around the beds, the asparagus is coming along and it just may be that some of the seed i spread out there last autumn may have taken hold...we will see as the plants become more identifiable...

the ramp population has been stable at forty-three plants the past two censuses i have taken so i believe we have reached the end of that expansion...growth, blooms, and seed are next on the wish list there...

and finally, the wheat and rye are filling in and doing fine...

the rye is pushing two feet in height...

the wheat is shorter...however it never reaches the vertical dimension the rye does...so it would seem to be on schedule...looking for a harvest in july sometime...and then the real work begins...the season is taking hold and later this month squash, legumes, solanum, and zea will be going in...and the bees in june...the tempo will be picking up soon.