eleusis in the back yard

however there is a cmapus trip to relate first...out early to have a look and take care of a few things...

over in the asparagus bed there are new spears...

continued "ferning"...

and multiple blooms...there may be "berries" this season...

seven of the nineteen spuds i planted behind the asparagus have come up...

while over in my "official" bed...

there there are now four garlic plants up and running...

with easily as many volunteer potatoes...

i popped up one of the unsprouted garlic cloves and it seems to be inert...this may change...i have never attempted spring garlic before and, given current results, probably will not again...that too could change...

the alflafa is expansive...

and my favorie correspondent will be pleased to learn it is stil scoffing at any sort of limit...

i have a number of potatoes chitting away at home and so brought five to the campus to plant...

i added two to the asparagus bed population...

then moved some rocks around the perimeter of the "official" bed and add three to the volunteers there...after which i headed home...

where i began by checking on the teosinte seed i soaked a few days ago...thirty-three of sixty-five have germinated...a shade over fifty percent and there may be more...so the seed is viable and it is time to prepare a bed...

out back the einkorn wheat is coming along...as well as some native growth that needs tending to...

there are emergent seed heads on the rye by the locust tree...

and the winter wheat on the compost pile...

is "keeping up with the ryes"...eleusis comes to the back yard...

the container spuds are in full leaf and the containers will be back filled shortly...

the strawberries are producing...

and there are signs of grapes to come on the vines in the fir trees...there's more...however that is another post.

soak

these are the teosinte seeds from last year and, since it is the the tenth of may and things will be consistently warmer as the month wears on...

i picked out sixty odd of the darker seeds...

soaked them in a 3% solution of hydrogenperoxide for upwards of half an hour to break dormancy...

wrapped them in brown paper towel dampened with distilled water, put them in baggies, and set them in a dark place...when i tried to germinate some of this seed last autumn the results were pretty much a disaster so i have some concern...i have a fair quantity of frozen seed from past years so i can still manage a crop if these misfire...we won't know for a week or so...so, like a lot of things in the emprical life, we wait to see...

i perchased some hopi blue maize seed so i can plant the descendant with the ancestor...just to compare...

the teosinte in the basement is still exhibiting silks...

the plant still has what i can only call a rudimentary flower...

and there is a small bulge in the stem below the silks...one presumes the plant is trying to produce seed...dna is relentless...i am not sanguine about results...there will doubtlessly be more about the zea family as the season moves along...stay tuned if you are interested.

potatoes are perennials

we received measurable rain last night...

and it has warmed...

so after i got off what passes for work these days i went out to the campus garden to have a look around...

over in the asparagus bed...

i counted thirteen spears ( not including the "ferned" ones )...

eleven ant hills...

and saw no sign of the spuds i planted last trip out...

someone, or some thing, has been snaping spears off above ground so i cut them off below ground just to kee things neat and to minimize the potential for viruses and/or infestations...

over in my "official" bed...

there are still only two garlic plants up which is diminishing my already feeble enthusiasm for spring garlic...

there is a surfeit of volunteer spuds in this bed...proving that potatoes are actually perennials masquerading as plant/replant annuals...i never seem to find them all at harvest...

at the south end of the bed the two alfalfa plants seem to have merged...

and an increasingly important correspondent to this blog will still be pleased that the alflafa considers any attempt at setting limits a grievous insult...a scofflaw if ever there was one...we will see what the spuds i actually planted are up to ( if anything ) next trip out.