i did not expect to see garlic...

...and i did not...at the campus garden today..and, i suspect, at the "other garden" when i visit ...probably tomorrow...

i did find happy alflafa...

and, since the garden hose has been brought out...i gave the bed a thorough watering in an effort to produce happy garlic as well...

the "unseasonably warm" weather is due to take a trun for the spring-like...however never trust the weather...it may rain...it may not...either way the garlic is watered...

over in the asparagus bed there were thirty-three spears up all told...

including a few that had grown so quickly they have begun to "fern"...

to forestall further ferning" i made a small harvest...then headed home where things to a somewhat more interesting turn ( in my estimation anyway )...

there is happy alfalfa in the back yard as well...

there are now eight rows of einkorn wheat...although some of last year's seed has misfired...

the ramp poulation is expanding...and then i stumbled on ( actually i didn't stumble, i am consistent in taking a tramp around the back yard to see what is what on a daily basis...i like to keep track of what's going on... ) some surprises in terms of timing of appearance...as i mentioned the weather has been remakably warm for mid-april around here...still i was surprised to find...

not one but actually two chinese yam vines up and running...may is the usual time for them to pop up...

the new york import strawberries are blooming fully nine days earlier than last year...

and that is a jerusalem artichoke...in the thirteen years i have been growing these they have not once appeared before the tail end of the first week of may...so we are three weeks ahead of schedule here...these are native plants, not imports...they evolved here and are a fair index of the fact that the climate around here is changing...a few years ago the usda quietly modified their "hardiness zone" for this area and the sunchokes seem to be seconding the change...certainly this is the earliest i have ever seen them...if there's an el nino summer we'll see how they all do...could be a tough season.

different garden...same sort of garlic

a day off ofund me in the garden before seven this morning...mostly to beat the campus traffic and indiscrimnate parking...where i found...

twenty-seven asparagus spears in different phases of emergence...

some of which i harvested...over in my official bed...

the alfalfa is getting along with its spring growth...pollen and nesting material for the bees soon enough...

when i put this fabric down last autumn it was flat...so what, i was wondering, was going on under there...

no clue what this is ( or, rather, was )...

however it was deeply rooted enough that it took a minute or two of shovel work to dislodge it...

the bed was heavily populated by rocks from last season's rock mulch experiment...so i piled them aside...

did the requisite turning, compsting, turning, hoeing, and raking of the bed...

scooped out twenty holes three inches or so deep...

gave each a handful of sand and another of worm castings...

and planted twenty garlic cloves, pointy side up...

i marked them all ( i brought enough markers today ) and lined the edge of the bed with the rocks...we may be experimenting with a rock mulch on garlic before long...there are seed potatoes on the way which will be going in behind the asparagus before the end of the month ( tentatively, contingent on actual arrival of the spuds and the weather )...imagining there will be more frequent trips out here to mind the asparagus and harvest it a bit more thoroughly than last season...it "ferned" early last year because it grew rapidly between deferred visits...we will assay to do better this year.

i wasn't planning on doing this

nonetheless this morning found me in the portage community garden anyway, putting in a reasonably low maintenace to keep time investment to a minimum...so i cleaned the bed...

turned it...spread and turned in some compost..turned it again...worked it with a warren hoe...

and raked it more level than it was even if it wasn't perfect...

then i took thirty six garlic loves that have been inhabiting my refrigerator for the last six weeks...

some worm castings...

and some sand to get this started...

the sand is an experiment...the purpose is to loosen the soil around the bulb making it easier for it to expand...having never done this before i used sand on only half of the plantings, leaving the remainder as a sort of control...

i dug thirty six holes at least nine inches apart and planted the lot...everyone got some worm castings...

i ran out of plant markers...okay...garlic is fairly easily recognized when it comes up...and that was the extent of the community garden trip this morning...here at home..

there are muted signs of life in the winter wheat bed...

the einkorn is doing just fine...

ramps are up...

and there are daffodils any way you look...still no sign of aspaaragus.

signs of green

temperature is up a bit...

and there's been a bit of rain this morning...

so it seemed a fair time to have alook and see what might be going on out back...

sixteen days after i planted it both the einkorn wheat i harvested from the campus garden last summer...

and the remainder of the seed i purchased in spring 2022 have begun to come up...so the ancient dna can still fire up for a season of reproduction...

and ten days after planting the black tip wheat is sprouting...the hard red winter wheat is beginning to make something of a recovery as well so we will wait and see where that leads...i am thinking that i will give that bed a break from wheat in fall and plant winter rye or, perhaps, winter barley there in autumn...

among the native growth there are clear signs of ramps in the ramp bed...come septemeber, when the ramps are dormant, we will be giving that bed a thorough cleaning, sepaarating any ramps that bunched, and replanting the ramps we do not utilize...

the mooseberry bush is giving clear indications of its intention to leaf fairly soon...as i recall i had some concerns about it in its first spring season...doesn't look like a dead stick this year...

there are growing populations of daffodild and other spring flowers..the russian olive and winter jasmine will be blooming soon as well...there is no sign of asparagus yet...we wait.