Interesting!

"Ancient Pawnee corn is brought back to life"

http://www.khastv.com/news/local/c-99586474.html

Lastest shots from the garden

PNW Update

Here's a few recent pix from the Olympic Forest patch. I caught thumper eyeing the crop so I had to add some extra fencing. Despite the terrible climate this year I might get knee high by 7/4. BTW, Is it best to cull the sucker shoots?



When I cleared the bigger area this year I ran across several small fir seedlings and a couple four footers. I hated to destroy them although there are thousands around, so I decided to experiment with transplanting with the idea that if they make it I would pass them along to friends for their yards.




The weather wasn't very cooperative for my veggie beds so it looks like I'll just do the container gardening this year and be prepared for next year. I have begun gathering plans and materials for several elevated beds with cloches to extend the season next year. It will probably be the earliest and longest summer on record. Later

Squash blossoms and corn

Crooked neck

and Spaghetti squash

Planting the Three Sisters - Nelson, Lancs, England

Today, May 30, we planted out the corn and squash in the Three Sisters Bed. The corn we got from Colorado Bob, half of it, and the other half from a supplier in England. Both kinds are Hopi Indian Blue Corn. I put the beans straight in the ground on the 20th, they are not up yet. I had raised the corn and squash under cover, and today we put them in. More news at http://www.pendlepeople.com/firequeen/gardenblog.htm

Arroyo Moon Rise

Top photos taken looking east toward the Organ Mountains. The arroyo behind my house (2 palm trees).

Garden.

Building a Fence Redux

More shots of the job moving along. 4 antenna towers , note the truss across the top.




New Flower Bed in the alley ! Cool huh ?

Building a Fence

A visitor today -


Trench for rail road tie cribbing in front of "P.J. Belly Memorial Puttin' Green " -


Fence posts along the back of the garden -

Olympia Rain Forest Blue Corn -Redux

I started my second season as a farmer (gardener) with the seed product from last year. All is well in the rain forest, we just need more Sun and heat and less clouds and rain. Forecast looks bleak for the next few weeks. Reclaiming the ground for a garden is a bear on our property so I've invested a little time and money for a couple large elevated boxes. It means I can place them to maximize the elements. Last year I just agitated the existing soil and enhanced it with a mix. This time around I created a raised bed with a better mix and larger area for the corn. The elevated ones will be for my other veggies.
I've have a couple pix to start the year off on the blog. btw, I forwarded a batch of seeds to some (AmInd) friends in SD, NE and OK . Hopefully they'll have some success and join in here. Cbob, I can't help be reminded what the gov did all those years ago to encourage the tribes to put down the arms and become farmers ;-)

Hippeastrum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hippeastrum (pronounced /ˌhɪpiˈæstrəm/)[2] is a genus of about 90 species and 600+ hybrids and cultivars of bulbous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas from Argentina north to Mexico and the Caribbean. Some species are grown for their large showy flowers. These plants are popularly but erroneously known as Amaryllis, a monotypic African genus in the same family.



My really big one, these leaves are 4 feet long. This bulb made a daughter this spring.

I see Mexico from my house...

When I see 'Tres Hermanas" mountain peaks in the distance, Mexico is just to south of that formation. The three sisters...and we have expanded our garden this year to have not only squash, corn and beans, but also peas, tomatoes, radish, parsley, basil, chile peppers, habaneros, jalapenos, onions, chives, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, sun flower, marigolds. Our garden is 27 ' X 9'. We made our own soil from compost, peat and manure. Although we did get a late start in April, we have had one radish to eat.

You are our inspiration, C-bob!

One of the Amigos Bloomed !

If you go west out of Ft. Summer, New Mexico towards Vaughn, New Mexico there is a forest of these things. They will bloom this month.

Upside Down Tomatoes

So after 2 years of " Topsy - Turvey Tomato " ads at 3 A.M. ........ I bit .
I planted an Upside Down Tomato tonight.




It's a pain in the ass, and after I finished watering the transplant, I asked myself. " Why did I do this ? " It's a " Bush Goliath ", from Home Depot. $3.50 each, and a new bucket and lid for $2.34 and $0.98 ea. Plus 5 gallons of soil made by me, (the best part of the deal). After some thought I see the point of this ......... no cage, because tomatoes need to stay off the ground. A few weeks in the greenhouse, and outside she goes, if I can figure out how to move 5 gallons of wet soil, & not crush the " Bush Goliath ".

Larry's Nodders and a New Dr. Pepper Paint Job

The Sage is Peeking Through the Marker

Hi from Firequeen

Hi Bob, thanks for the invite, managed to sign in an all so here I am! Planning a special bed on our land to plant Three Sisters - a friend brought two sacks of rabbit manure over today, to fertilise it. I'm recording everything in my garden blog on my website at http://www.pendlepeople.com/firequeen/gardenblog.htm

Pendle refers to the area where I live, it's called Pendle after the big hill round which the towns are dotted. It's a very rural area, pretty, with small rolling slopes and lots of trees - green everywhere, with lambs skipping everywhere at the moment. We are in Lancashire, that's in the North of England, and the towns are the old industrial cotton towns, but the countryside is beautiful with lots of cycling and walking. Our land is beside the Leeds-Liverpool canal, it is a piece of farmland, cut off from the rest of the farm when the railway went through over a hundred years ago, and not cultivated for a very long time.

I love your blog Bob, and am so glad I found you and your corn.

Geraldine (Firequeen)

Planting the 3 Sisters

From the Fire Queen :

Hi Bob, thanks for the corn which arrived yesterday. A friend in Texas wrote me that :
Corn the Indian way was to plant a couple of seeds,a dead fish in the same hole and a few beans very close (or in the same hole.?)

Any comments? Sounds like it would be fun to do, so plan to get a few pounds of sprats down the fishmongers for when we plant out. Being Britain, going to plant and raise first indoors then outside under cover until strong enough to face the weather. (plants that is not me!)

Thanks so much for this gift across the divide.

Fire -
You're on to 2/3's of what is called " The 3 Sisters ". Check out this video I shot , I'm planting seedlings, but the technique is the way the Indians of the southwest farmed the dry river beds. Corn was planted in a "hill" usually a circle 2 to 3 feet across. Mixed in with the corn, they planted squash, and beans. Digging out the hill, and adding manure, mulch, fish, and other fertilizers was done widely. I'd let the fish sit in the ground a few days before I planted on top of it. Corn loves nitrogen, and the beans the Indians were using probably had legume properties. I.E. nitrogen fixing bacteria in their roots.
Try a circle with 5 or 6 corn plants in it, space out the plantings. In different holes plant 3 or 4 beans, 3 or 4 squash.
Corn and beans combine to make complete protein needs in humans. This is how the peoples of Mexico achieved such large populations.
Image credit

David Sadler

A big thank-you to David Sadler of Hobbs, New Mexico, for carving this wonderful monument for our garden.
Sadler & Son Monument Works


Spring Planting 2010

This Month's Booth

Sold some Airplane Plants .... Woo Hoo .


Scouts toasting mellows at Tony's Fire Table.

Blue Corn Goes Global & Other Assorted Things

The Mexican White Masa Corn
One week every seed up , all 76 of them.
Again thank-you Clare in Benson.



Pretty interesting emails this season, I was able to help Joel at Tuthilltown Sprits. He was looking for enough seed to make a batch of whiskey. Blue Corn Lighting ! I remembered these guys, Sunny State Products, from when I was setting up this thing last year.

Around the same time, a fellow in Paris contacted me for some ears with the seed still on the cob. Adrien was working with a French artist named Camille Henrot. I sent them a dozen ears yesterday, shucks and all.

I had a request from Geraldine in Nelson, Lancashire, UK. The first time for the UK.
James in Hamden, CT
Travis in Salt Lake, Ut
Valerie in Grinnell, IA 
Bill in Grass Valley, Ca

I'll send invites to post on the site to you all. Now I guess I'll work on the map, lots of pins to add.

My Friends Made Me Cry Today

I found this little strip on Buddy Holy Ave. , and I tried to green it up, like my mother taught me.
I'll say more , when I stop crying.

Planting Mexican White Masa Corn & Walking Stick Cactus

I got my seed from Clare in Benson , and planted it in peat pots & small seed packs, 76 of them, with 1 seed each.







Built a planter in my mother's garden downtown, moving the " 3 Amigos " down there soon.

The 3 Amigos



The pear tree across the alley, we just might make a crop this year.

An Anniversary , and the 1st Year's Experiment's Results

My seed corn from last season. Some of this corn was grown on Buddy Holly Ave. in downtown Lubbock , Texas.



Last March , on the 11th . I launched this site with the following post :

Last night March 9, 2009 I offered to buy Hopi Blue Corn seeds for anyone who would plant them , regardless of their location. My email is posted on the right, just under the corn grinders.
Drop me an email, with your screen name , and mailing address, and I'll send you a package of:

Zea mays Tender Annual Hopi Blue Dent is an ancient flint corn, a traditional staple of the Hopi Indians of Northern Arizona. The 5' bushy plants have 8"—10" ears each. The ears have smooth blue kernels which dry to royal blue which can be eaten fresh, dried for cornmeal, or used for decorative purposes.

Last fall, when the crop came in I was asked for the results of the season. At the time it was too soon to tell really. I posted some answers, but not the results of the experiment.
Here are the results of Colorado Bob's Hopi Blue Experiment :
There is Big Medicine in Blue Corn.

I have changed the policy tonight ( It's under the email on the right).

You get 24 seeds , not 15 .

Swapping Seeds

I got a note from Clare at Benson, Ariz. She offered to swap seeds. How could I refuse ???
This is White Mexican Masa, pretty cool stuff.

" Mark the Oak "

3 seasons ago, thanks to Don Calwell , and the Tornadoes, I was lucky enough to plant a little garden on Buddy Holly Ave., along the south wall of the Cactus Theater. I named it after my mother , Peggy Chapman. Last year, when Lubbock lost Joe Don Davidson, I had just bought a fig tree for the garden, when I learned the news of Joe Don. So there is a fig there for him. In the fall , when Lubbock lost Mark, I couldn't plant anything till spring. This is an oak I've been nursing along since last summer. Tornado Larry helped me dig a hole for it the other day, to replace our poor old elm someday. So look for " Mark the Oak " west of "Joe Don the Fig".

My Quince is flowering. It's the best thing about spring.