vines and grains

i found a couple of concord grape vines growing through the fence into the neighbor's yard and i wasn't having that so i pulled them back through...

drove in a couple of five foot garden stakes...

drilled a few holes...

strung the stakes with galvanized wire...

and gave them a new home...

they have good new growth at the ends so i don't doubt we will be expanding and improving this...

the surprise grape vine out by the alley...

is going about the business of attaching itself to the fence rather than "native growth"...

these have fine new growth as well so we may need to make a turn before we reach the back gate...

most of the winter rye is finished...

you can see the grain in the ears...however there is a threat of rain today and i do not want to being in soggy rye so harvest will wait for a sunny, breezy day..

the wheat there is is mostly finished as well...it will receive the same treatment as the rye for the same reason...

seen from the top mooseberry is another case of" good new growth"...

there's quirte a bit of green out there like garlic and the sweet clover that is cohabiting...

so the bush may be difficult to pick out...however a diet of compost and worm castings has fendered it far more robust than last season...there's more but it is a day off and i have things to do...we will get to the rest later

communities

a holiday and out of the house before six to do the garden rounds...at the portage garden the maize is nothing if not robust and the spuds look like shrubbery...it must have been one of the sporadic nights when the sprinklers were on because the beds were moist if not downright wet...no need to water so no nred to hang around...so i didn't...

at the campus garden...

i found the asparagus upright and putting up at least one summer spear...

the einkorn wheat is still mostly green...

however several more ears have finished up...i believe we are looking at a late july/early august harvest...

over in the "official" bed...

the hopi turquoise is looking corny as could be...

and, incidentally, at least "knee high"...

the intractable alflafa...

is full of blooms...

as is the carolina horse nettle...

which are being thoroughly mugged by bumble bees...the blooms fell off the spuds when the weather became hot...these solanums will not lose their flowers and there will be fruits soon enough...another reproductive vehicle for a stubbornly colonizer...

unlike the portagen garden, the lawn on campus is looking parched...

so i irrigated again, even though the rock mulch appears to be working...not everyone got a rock.

early july yard

my back yard received half an inch of rain yesterday...

and temperatures are "seasonable" so after i got home from work i had a look around the back yard...

the maize is robust and more than "knee high" as of the second day of the month ( so is most of the dense yellow #2 out in the industrial fields by the by )...

some of its "wild and weedy ancestor" teosinte is next to it...not quite as tall...it isn't domesticated and "improved"...still it is looking sturdy...

the asparagus is producing "berries"...

the rye is looking blonder and i can see individual grains...

there's still some green out there though so perhaps another week before harvest...

the surprise grape vine is doing well...

and is getting on with the busines of attaching itself to the fence rather than "native growth" attached to the fence...we are pleased...

finally, bee moms have been diligently gathering pollen and nesting materials, laying eggs, and plugging tubes...

natural craftswomen...

this weathered old bee house ( and please not this is a photo from four days ago i was remiss today ) has twenty-eight plugged tubes of bee larvae and i counted three in the newer bee house just now...the best season on record for bee house useage...i left them both out all winter and the weathering seems to have helped...perhaps the girls appreciate sabi.