Thursday, April 30, 2015

alfalfa and spuds

it's been a fairly busy day for a day off work and after i returned home from discharging some responsibilities it got a bit busier...i have a couple of small stands of alfalfa growing out back ( top two photos )...i had a bit more but i turned it under when i planted some spuds back there...alfalfa is a legume and it acts as a "green manure" setting nitrogen in the soil in conjunction with soil bacteria...that's the original intent i had when i planted it...then, to complicate things, i ordered mason bees as pollinators...all fine and good but their season ends in july leaving late blooming crops out in the cold relative to my back yard...so the solution was to purchase some summer bees ( which i did but hey have not arrived yet ) to fill the gap...those summer bees just happen to be alfalfa leaf cutter bees who prefer alfalfa leaves to use to construct their nests...so i left the two remaining stands go and ordered some more alfalfa seed...it came today ( third photo ) and so i took a handful ( fourth photo ) and started several (3) more stands of the plants in anticipation of bees...having finished that up i went downstairs to find another seed potato plant had died back and rendered a couple of yukon gold drops ( fifth photo )...so far the basement project has yielded eighteen tubers and there are still more plants going strong under the lights so there is a possibility of more soon enough...i had wanted to get to the community garden today for a number of reason but time was not on my side in this...so...saturday is the new target...time to turn those green manures under in anticipation of planting day...there may be rain...it does not matter...gardening is an all-weather sport.

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