demolition begins

this eastern gamagrass wa sthe second thing planted in the perennial garden...in november of 2009 about a month after the jerusalem artichokes...it went in as thirty seeds and the notoriously low fertility of the seed mean that only ten percent germinated...those three thrived though and they produced many low fertility seeds over the next five years...the jerusalem artichokes came out after the 2012 season so it is somehow fitting that the next oldest plants be the next out...there will be more deconstruction in the coming weeks...rain is forecast for later this coming week...i believe i will wait for softer ground to go after these perennial roots.

early blue and teosinte

it is nearly the end of september but the early blue in the pgp continue to bloom ( top photo ) and my supposition is that they will do so until either i dig them up or frost kills the...the potato fruit ( second photo ) are still hard and not ready to harvest...waiting as patiently as i can for that...the removal of the gamagrass left me with a less restricted view of the perennial teosinte ( third photo )...it is doing well and producing both tillers and support roots ( fourth photo )...it still looks far more like maize than the annual variety does to me.

two days before the end of summer

the potato fruit ( top photo ) population has remained stable so i did not bring any more in...if they begin to disappear the remainder will be coming home...the northern tepehuan teosinte ( second photo )is progressing with its flowering and i will be bringing pollen from the plants in my yard to try to fertilize it...across the garden the zea diploperennis ( third photo ) that survived last winter is still looking robust...it has produced new tillers and the support roots ( fourth photo ) are preparing for the tiller to lay down...time is short for this garden...i have until spring i am told but the balance will be out by november.

solanum

the early blue ( a misnomer i'm thinking ) potatoes in the perennial garden are still blooming ( top photo )...and some of those blooms are morphing into seed pods/fruits ( second photo )which is something i have never seen on a potato plant before...potatoes and tomatoes are both members of the same family and so it makes sense that some of the plant structures would resemble one another...these two plants are relatives and neighbors in the garden so a comparison was simple...the third photo is of a very young tomato ( which may not develop much more given the weather ) and the fourth photo is of the potato pod...you can see the resemblance in the calyces even though the tomatoes is much larger...i am all curiosity to see if the pods on the early blue have enough time to mature...domesticated potato seeds may not be tremendously viable, but i'd like to have some anyway.

from spear to fern

just a progression of four different asparagus plants from spear to flowering "fern"

teosinte

the northern tepehuan teosinte in the garden ( top two photos ) is flowering away and that is cool because i can collect pollen to cross pollinate with the flowering plants at home( there are four out there now ) i am hoping forseed ears this season but the fall is turning cool so frost may have the last word on ears...the single perennial teosinte plant ( third photo ) out there is tillering again as the photo period shortens...as the tillers grow longer they tend to lay out across the ground and so they develop support roots ( bottom photo ) to keep the stalks off the soil and out of any collecting water...the aforementioned frost may negate the need for the roots...but the plant does not know that.

september

when i saw and photographed these structures last week ( top photo ) i said they were on a potato plant...then i began second guessing myself and thinking they had to be nascent tomatoes since there is a tomato plant just to the right of where i found these...so today i traced the plant back to the roots and this IS a potato plant...potatoes and tomatoes ate from the same family and so my best surmise is that these are seed cases and the idea of producing potato seed has me geeked...more as this progresses...the second photo is of a northern tepehuan teosinte plant that has emerged from the shadows of the asparagus and the third shows it is blooming...more pollen for cross fertilizing the plants there and at home...the last photo is of some autumn asparagus spears that have erupted...the asparagus really did well here and it is unfortunate it is done after this season...i bought new garden shears today in preparation for the ultimate end of the season/garden...that will be sooner than later.