eleven days, two takers

eleven days ago i soaked eleven tesointe seeds ( for all you numerology believers ) and as of this evening there are two that have germinated...this variety is new to me and i am not sure if an eighteen percent germination rate is the norm...however i do know that this is not nearly enough plants to have a season with...so over the upcoming long weekend ( which promises to be crowded with gardening preparations ) there will be another soak and bagging...the two that have germinated are doing well and it looks as if the one in the last photo will be finding its way to a peat pot soon enough...and outside in a few weeks...once the threat of frost is past...teosinte may need a cycle pof cold to break dormancy naturally but it doesn't like cold weather...neither do its descendants.

rhizomes

from early blues to german butter balls the spuds in the peat pots under the lights waiting to go outside are churning out rhizomes like mad...it is time for these to go out but the weather will not cooperate yet...hopefully ti will warm sufficiently this coming week that i can get them out over the weekend...even if i have to use some frost cloth to keep them from being frost bit it would be better for them to be in the ground...don't want to waste these rhizomes by turning them into more stems and leaves...want tubers...so i hilled what rhizomes i could reasonably expect to keep out of the light ( clearly the ones in the second and third photos are too far out of the pots to cover...stems they will be ) and will see what i can do about some planting...it early...but these are not going to wait much longer...it is becoming a necessity that can't be put off much longer.

germination

of the eleven teosinte seeds i soaked in hydrogen peroxide and put into a wet paper towel to germinate, two have actually made the effort ( there is a third one at the top of the bottom photo with a split seed case which may prove viable as well )...i have not worked with this variety of teosinte before...it is one native seed search is working on expanding and it is available this year for the first time so i have no real idea of what its germination rate is...based on this it is much lower than northern tepehuan teosinte...almost all the seeds of that variety i soaked germinated...i will be giving it another week and if there is not any more in the way of seeds from this batch joining these in germinating there will be another soak...perhaps half an hour rather than twenty minutes...

last day of winter

it has cooled a bit since last week but it is still a bit unseasonable for the last day of winter...the tulips ( second photo 0 in the back yard are beginning to emerge and more ramps are up ( third and fourth ) with the leaves beginning to extend out of the stems on some...waiting for more...soon hopefully...the garlic is looking robust even in the chill ( the night time temperatures have been below freezing ) and so will, again hopefully, thrive...the bed in the sixth photo may not look too promising at the moment bit with a little work, some compost, some jerusalem artichoke control, and a bit of patience it will be the same caliber wheat bed it was three years ago...i am determined to make some home made bread from scratch this year...and i mean from the beginning...there will be more on that project as the season goes on and we mover from the yard into the kitchen.

st. patrick's day green

the movement may be slow with yacon but there is movement none the less...the root crown i planted a couple of weeks ago has finally budged as you can see ( barely, it is small ) in the top photo...the second photo is of a plant grown from a rhizome i planted on christmas day ( i told you there were slow...seven month season minimum )..it is looking robust...the cutting in the third photo has lost the large leaves i left on ti but the center where the new growth emerges is green...i am hoping it roots well...the fourth photo is of another root crown i planted at the same time as the newly emerged one...the difference is this one had already started to green up when i planted it so it has=d a head start...the other cutting looks rather bad actually and i fear it has onto taken...so six yacon plants at the moment with some tuber pieces still in the vegetable crisper...hopefully a sign of an expanded plant population this season...and in honor of the day the last photo is of an elegant ollala potato plant under the lights in the basement...waiting for warmer weather ( there is a cool off forecast ) to make the move outside.

early spring

an unnaturally ( which may indeed be the "new" natural ) warm late winter continues with a temperature of seventy degrees ( fahrenheit ) at about four-thirty in the afternoon...the garlic that has defied the mulch is looking fine and ramps keep popping up in the beds...as a bonus i have seen the first earthworm of spring before sporing arrives...always a cheering sight i am glad to have them in the yard doing their part to loosen and aerate the soil as well as fertilize...the yacon and the spuds in the plant room are itching to get out into the real world...i an hoping it is not going to be a summer of drought they find there...that is for the future...at the moment things are promising on the one hand and disturbing on the other..much to think over as preperations for a new season continue...more as it comes up.

what's up II

i didn't include any photos of garlic in the first post because most of what i unmulched looked a bit scrawny and pale like the garlic in the first two photos...you'd be at least a bit discolored if you'd been under a pile of straw and compost all winter too...but when i went out again i found the plant in the third photo which has obviously disregarded my regard for its health and disrupted the mulch to emerge and both grow and fully deploy chlorophyll...i will admit to being a bit startled to have missed it...definitely time for a trip out to the community garden to see what's up out there...the issue is there is a possibility of snow in the forecast for next weekend ( not spring until next sunday )...there will be some waiting before unmulching i think...i have only unmulched part of the garlic bed..the rest i will be leaving covered..finally, is that little seedling in the last photo eastern gamagrass? i will admit that it has been so long since i germinated any that i cannot remember...i planted a gamgrass seed in that container last autumn ad let ti winter over outside like it is supposed to be done...but gamagrass is notoriously infertile...last time i got a 10% germination rate...this would be a shade over 16%...i have seed i stratified in the vegetable crisper to work with if this fails...but there are no guarantees with gammagrass.