mid-may

middle of the month and the everbearing strawbnerries are...bearing...which suits me some and the birds to a greater extent...

the basement teosinte has moved to the great outdoors and continues to flower...however, despite a swelling in the stem below the bloom i cannot detect anything like silks and so doubt the possibility of seed...viable or not...

some of the five containerized teosinte plants ( there is a dog here now ) are working a third leaf...pleasing...

the grape vines on the trellis and the ones in the caltalpa tree are leafing out...

as are the ones in the fir trees...

and the concord is showing good new vine growth as well...

my mooseberry bush ( high bush cranberry for those of you who did not grow up with rocky and bullwinkle ) is being skeletalized by what i believe to be virburnum leaf beetles....i try to be organic and will use neem oil if and when the japanese beetles appear however that will not control these beetles so i have utilized a systemic insecticide which i applied around the base of the plant and i have been dousing it with insecticidal soap...we will give mooseberry every chance we can even if it transgresses some tenets...

mason bees are working away at filling nesting tubes in bee houses scattered around the yard...good news and i will need to place more around to accomodate the leaf cutters coming next month...

and, finally, it has been rainy here...last month we received more than double the april avarage rainfall ( i know, averages lie )...and it has been a wet may to date...so...

fungi are popping up all around...and...

the dead elm at the back of the yard is supporting an irruption of dryad's saddles...there's bound to be more going on as the month progresses...we will see what transpires.

new habitat?

got a dog...a terrier with an inherent avocation for digging...she has dug a trench along one side of the yard, although she has mostly abandonded it for a new interest in mole hills, the abandonded trench is not dead...

it has become habitat for at least three nests of ground bees...this is the first time i have noticed them in the yard and i am inclined to believe they have been attracted by the trench since they are digging nests into the trench wall...they are not aggressive, they were buzzing me as i took photos but no one even seemed interested in stinging me ( although they can sting )...so they can stay as far as i am concerned...an auxiliary to the leaf cutters that will arrive next month...

april was "unseasonably warm"...or, perhaps, simply the new "seasonable" and my rain gauge recoreded 4.7 inches of precipitation which exceeds the 2.52 inch average ( yes, i know, averages lie ) for the "normal" april...and with a shade over an inch of rain already in may it seems destined to continue..we will keep an eye on that...

the surviving tesointe plant that has been in the basement most of the winter...

has flowered...i will be keeping an eye out for any swelling in the stem below the flower and for any sign of silks where the leaf just below the bloom meets the stem...seems unlikely to me, however there is hope...

and in other zea news, one of the ten or so zea mays parvaglumis seeds i planted in a container ( remember the digging dog? ) has germinated...i will be watching this and the seed i planted last week on campus as well...more as it comes up.

unmet expectations...

which may be my responsibility for entertaining them...life's like that sometimes...

it is a spare lookng bed i have going on here on campus...

i am afraid there is no life left in one of the alfalfa transplants...time to take it out...

the other alfalfa plant is verdant and obviously working on building a root system given its height compared to what is in my back yard...

still, up and running...

beyond that it gets a bit sketchy...this is the extent of the emmer wheat that is up and , like in my yard, the einkorn has completely failed...

the barley seems to be in little better shape...

while the containers out in my back yard are looking lush...so the seed is good... so i planted...

two more rows...where the einkorn has failed...

as well as a row of teosinte for which i have zero expectations...

some of the asparagus has begun to "fern" which is fine...feed the roots...

while some individuals are harvesting spears by simply snapping them off which displeasess me for more than aesthetic reasons...so i cut them off below soil surface and will continue to do so as i maintain the bed

wheat barley asparagus alfalfa ramps...that's enough for one day

temperatures here are down out of the seventies ( fahrenheit ) and into what you could call a more "seasonable" range...

and two tenths of an inch of rain brought the total for the month so far to one and six tenths inches of precipitation...

combine that with a day off and it seemed a good time to make a run out to campus to take care of a few things...

in the one bed i am working this year i found...

a total of seven spears up and running...not nearly ready for harvest which is a bit behind last season...

the transplanted alfalfa on the west end of the bed is doing fairly well and i would suspect putting most of its enegry into re-establishing roots...not unreasonable and an explanation for the sparse green...

unfortunately the alfalfa on the east end seems to be failing...when i pulled it up i found the roots still moist and supple so we will leave it for now and hope...

i turned and hoed the back side of the bed...

and, despite james scott's injunction and the faddist dietary hoo-ha, i planted rows of einkorn and emmer wheat as well as barley...if it goes well there will be cereal grains by mid-summer...

back home in the east bed there is asparagus up as well...

some of which has escaped the bed...

the barley i planted back there five days ago is germinating...

as is the wheat, albeit more slowly...it may not be cool enough for its taste...

one of the container planted spuds i put in last month has broken surface...a russet i believe...

i have four stands of alfalfa back there all of which are looking greener and more lush than the campus relatives...then again they have not been moved twice in five years and are well established...we will be feeding the bees and providing the solitary ones with nesting material..

i am always pleased when ramps begin to pop up in the bed on the north side of the house...i am hoping some flower this season and produce seed...we will see...

and, finally, jerusalem artichokes have begun to appear...a few days earlier than last year...and those were earlier than 2022...and the earlier arrivals can be regressed a few years to the point we are almost a month earlier than they were in the past decade...a native to these parts it is worth watchng their behaviors as a climate marker...they usually bloom in august...it will be worth noting what happens this coming july