fruit

spring is getting on ( it's already meteorological summer ) and the grandfatherly concord grape has an irruption of new growth...

which i am quietly directing towards the fir trees using tomato stakes and sisal twine...

while over on the sunnier side of the firs and in the catalpa tree clusters of nascent grapes are beginning to bloom...

drupes are forming across the mulberry tree...

and all along the beds the native berries...

while the new york imports are ripening...the birds will have supplies now and later...

meanwhile stolons are escaping the beds everywhere you look...the jerusalemn artichokes have no exclusive right to relentlessness.

another cycle

the spuds on the south side of the house continue to bloom...

and the red pontiacs i cut yesterday had callused pretty well since yesterday morning...

so i mixed some organic topsoil and mushroom compost ( not my favorite...however it was what was available ) in four containers...

and planted the lot...the bloomers should be done late this month or early july...these should come in in late august early september...i have some elmer's blues i will be planting directly and a few more seed potatoes i am going to try to hold onto to plant for an october harvest...the south side is filing up so i moved these out to a sunny spot by a maize/teosinte patch...we will see how well they cohabit as the season moves along.

warm one today

it is getting warm out there...today is forecast to be near ninety degrees ( fahrenheit ) and most things are moving along with the season...peas, zucchini, and bush beans are up...

as are, at last count, twenty-two maize plants and a dozen of their teosinte ancestors...

across the beds the new york strawberries are moving towards fruition...

in two days the jerusalem artichokes have made a statement about their intentions and the onions brazening it out in the face of the sunchokes' assertiveness are holding their own...

the chinese yam vine had topped out on the pole i provided it so i gave it a temporary support while i gather materials for a more elaborate trellis...past experience tells me there will be a need for more horizontal space for the vine...it will begin to branch soon enough...

the winter rye is now officially taller than i am...and it has been in full bloom for better than a week...

while the winter wheat is playing bloom catch-up...

the ramps did not have a stellar season above ground...we will have to wait until september or so to see if the energy was put into bunching below ground..this one plant however is making noises about flowering so there may be some small amount of seed yet..

and while we are discussing blooming, one of the spuds i started in the basement and moved outdoors is beginning to bloom and two others have developed buds...a clear sign that it is time to move on with the cyclical spud planting...

so i cut a couple of red pontiacs i had procured last month and will plant them tomorrow after they callous a bit...along with some elmer's blues i have that are chitting away and ready to go...

one thing that has not budged is the seven tubes of leaf cutter bees in this bee house...it does need to be in the 70s consistently before they will make a break...hopefully soon...i have two hundred cocoons due to arrive next week and i would like to see these boys and girls in motion before then...we'll see what happens in the next sennight or so.

bed 60

i rented another bed at the community garden to plant herbs and one of my daughters wants to grow tomatoes and peppers...my best thinking is that bed 60 has been fallow for a time...

so i cleared it, dug and hoed it...and the dug and hoed it again...

along the way i found quite a few earthworms...and, unfortunately, dispossessed a field mouse...

more distressingly, i uprooted a couple of bees...i am no more happy about this than they are...they can, if they wish, migrate to my back yard...there are vacancies in the old nurse log at the end of the patio...

there is not a garden center around here that has bagged compost or garden soil in stock so i broke into the reserves and dug two five gallon buckets of compost out of the bin in the back yard...

which i took and spread, along with what bagged compost and garden soil i had left, over the bed after the second dig/hoe...there is, i believe, planting scheduled for tomorrow...mind the bees...

over in bed six things are coming along...the spud corner is booming, the celery, kohlrabi, and turnips are fine...and all the maize i put in is up...

some robust little fellows...soon enough it will be time to plant pole beans to take advantage of the free cornstalk trellises and have two thirds of the the three sisters growing...the back yard here is blooming too...however that is a different post.