Spring Grasses

Weather: Unusually warm days with night temperatures just below freezing; last rain 3/19.

What’s blooming in the area: Apricot, peach, crab apple, Bradford pear, purple leaf plum, forsythia. People have been cleaning yards and burning. Water in the village ditch.

Beyond the walls and fences: Siberian elms bright green, alfilerillo, dandelion, western stickseed.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds, small ants’ hills rebuilt.

Weekly update: Traditional homesteads in the area have four places where grass may grow. The area near the house might have a lawn. Orchards are always grassed. Cultivated fields are bare, unless they grow hay. Outside the perimeter, wild grasses grow.

Orchard grasses are the greenest right now.

The hay is up enough for horses to be out last week. Cattle have been grazing this week.

The lawns have the most variety this time of year. The ones near the river are always the lushest.

The ones out my way vary. One I suspect is Bermuda grass which requires heat and doesn’t green until summer.

Some others don’t usually green up until early summer, but this year have come out with the warm afternoons.

A few are actually converted hay fields.

My neighbor’s yard I suspect, despite his best efforts sowing grass a few years ago, is actually young pigweed.

Photographs: All taken in area 27 March 2015.
1. Lawn, push mower.
2. Lawn, flood irrigation.
3. Orchard grass, flood irrigation.
4. Hay field, flood irrigation, tractor.
5. Lawn.
6. Lawn, flood irrigation, rider mower, fed.
7. Lawn, flood irrigation, rider mower, fed every year.
8. Hay field as lawn, flood irrigation.
9. Carefully manicured weeds, rider mower.

10. Needle grass in my yard, catches water along the gravel drive.

Growing Beans

Weather: Rained Wednesday and Thursday.

What’s blooming in the area: Apricots and a pink flowered tree, forsythia; globe and younger weeping willows, roses and lilacs leafing; flower buds on Bradford pear; alfalfa growing.

Beyond the walls and fences: Siberian elms greening, salt bushes leafing, dandelions up.

What’s come back in my yard: Spirea, fernbush, iris, garlic, tulips, daffodils, oriental poppy, Queen Anne’s lace, alfilerillo, bouncing Bess, coral beardtongue, golden spur columbine, vinca, anthemis, white yarrow, Shasta daisy.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds.

Weekly update: As soon as leaves emerge on beans, they need sun for photosynthesis.

Alexander Stephen doesn’t say how the Hopi kivas managed it for the beans they were growing indoors in 1893 for ritual purposes. Some built above ground had windows, but others did not. Still, plants in kivas with stoves varied from 10" to 14" in height on day eight, when most were only 3" to 5".

Mine were shorter. They may have been sitting in a widow, but the sun only came through a few hours in early February. When we had storms, it never appeared. If I turned the beans, the leaves reoriented themselves to always face the light.

Stephen measured the Hopi plants again on day thirteen when the ones in the stove kiva were 18" high. The next day, my stem was longer, and the third leaves were preparing to open. The bud that had emerged from the stem joint was longer, and more leaf shaped. The first leaves were beginning to wither on the edges.

On day fifteen, the Hopi pulled the plants and boiled them. If they were like mine, they had fully formed second pairs of leaves and the first ones weren’t yet unpalatable.

I didn’t eat my bean plants. I let them continue growing.

When the third leaves appeared, the plants moved from childhood to adolescence. The first and second leaves were pairs, but these were a set of three, with the center one much longer. The fourth set was already forming at the joint. The roots were now brown and reaching the base of the rock-glass sized plastic cup.

A few days later I repotted them into a clear plastic tumbler. For days, the roots stayed snarled at the junction between the old and new soil.

Five days later, on day 28, the stems were so long the ends were thin vines with sparsely spaced, tiny leaves. When the first leaves finally fell, they left scars on the lower stem, which was reddish. Thick roots were reaching into the new soil.

Two weeks later, on day 42, the original leaves began to multiply. That is, new leaf buds were emerging from their joints.

Last Sunday, on day 58, the base of the plant is thick with new triplets of leaves. Tiny pairs of leaves now sit under each leaf joint, mimicking the behavior of the first leaves.

The stems on the two plants that emerged have grown away from each other. The thin stems must have been abandoned since they had grown beyond the reach of the morning sun.

The roots are beginning to pool at the bottom and it’s just possible to see hairs on them.

They probably won’t reach adulthood in the house. I doubt they get enough sun to stimulate the growth of flower buds.

Notes:
Stephen, Alexander. Notebooks, 1882-1894, edited as Hopi Journal, 1936, by Elsie Clews Parsons.

Photographs: Native Seeds Search, Tucson, Hopi Gray lima bean.
1. 15 March 2015, full plant.

2. Day 14, 2 February 2015, second leaves ready to eat.

3. Day 19, 7 February 2015, third leaves unfurling.

4. Day 28, 16 February 2015, elongated vining stem.

5. Day 28, 16 February 2015, base stem with scars from first leaves.

6. Day 42, 1 March 2015, new leaves emerging from older notes.

7. Day 58, 15 March 2015, roots have grown into ridge in glass, can see hairs.

Sprouting Beans

Weather: Mornings five to ten degrees warmer.  Last snow 2/28.

What’s still green: Juniper, piñon, and other evergreens, yuccas, rose stems; leaves on grape hyacinth, Japanese honeysuckle, alfilerillo, June grass.

What’s gray: Salt bushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer.

What’s reddened: Cholla, twigs on peach, apricot, apple, sandcherry and sandbar willow; purple aster leaves.

What’s yellowed: Yellow on globe and weeping willows fading.

What’s blooming indoors: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds; ground squirrel run across the road near the wash-out.

Weekly update: Planting beans inside a dirt walled kiva in the middle of winter is an audacious ritual that depends on elements beyond anyone’s control. In the best of conditions, outdoors, it takes lima beans seven to ten days to germinate. Indoors, it’s best done when temperatures can be kept at seventy degrees.

The Hopi did it every year at Powamu, and forecast their planting season based on it. The trial was a partially valid test of seed viability. When I planted ten seeds this January, a few days before the Hopi planted them in 1893, only two germinated. Five were one variety. The ones that sprouted were Hopi Gray lima beans. Native Seeds said Maasi Hatiki was "sometimes sprouted and used in ceremonies."

The first requirement is dirt. Legumes require rhizobia bacteria to grow to convert nitrogen from the air into soil fertilizer. Gardeners buy chemical inoculants to mimic the process. Andrew Stephen said, the Hopi used sand from a "particular mound." I used soil that had been sitting in a pot on the back porch for years.

Warm soil is the second necessity. Men slept in each kiva during the two weeks of Powamu to keep the greasewood fire continuously stoked. They closed the hatches with mats to keep in the heat.

Stephen watched men in several kivas bring in a stove. They realized it was cheating, but they were plantsmen curious to see if it would make a difference.

Stephen must have grown up in a rural part of Scotland. He stopped by every few days to check their growth like any farmer or gardener or botanist. The wonder was anything happened.

On the third day, the beans in kivas with stoves were "peeping through already," but not in the ones "that depend on the fireplace." My seeds had begun sprouting underground, and shrugged off some of their dirt. I recovered them.

Mine didn’t actually show signs of emerging until day six, when the arch of the stem was exposed.

On day seven, the seedling finally emerged, with the first leaves clasped around the second like a fan dancer dislodging them from the soil. At Walpi on that day, forty vessels were planted in every kiva, and all were "sprouting vigorously." The forcing didn’t accelerate the natural process.

Notes:
Reilly, Ann. Park’s Success with Seeds, 1978.

Stephen, Alexander. Notebooks, 1882-1894, edited as Hopi Journal, 1936, by Elsie Clews Parsons.

Photographs: Native Seeds Search, Tucson, Hopi Gray lima bean.
1. Day 6, 25 January 2015, seedling beginning to emerge.
2. Day 7, 26 January 2015, first leaves leaving ground.
3. Day 8, 27 January 2015, second leaves opening.
4. Day 9, 28 January 2015 second leaves open.
5. Day 11, 30 January 2015, roots.

Lopping

Weather: Cold mornings, warm afternoons. Last snow 2/28.

What’s still green: Juniper, piñon, and other evergreens, yuccas, rose stems; leaves on grape hyacinth, Japanese honeysuckle, alfilerillo; June grass greening.

What’s gray: Salt bushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer.

What’s reddened: Cholla, twigs on peach, apricot, apple, sandcherry and sandbar willow; purple aster leaves.

What’s yellowed: Young stems on globe and weeping willows; arborvitae have browned.

What’s blooming indoors: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds.

Weekly update: Local men took advantage of the warm weeks in mid-February to prune their apples and other trees.

Horticultural experts tell us, apples are headstrong. That is, they put out erect branches that bear fruit on the ends. To increase the crop and keep the trees compact, they suggest people trim the verticals back about a third to force the tree to activate the dormant buds along the side.

They also tell growers they need to thin the buds once they emerge to prevent pairs of apples from touching one another. Since that’s a chore, chemists have developed sprays that do the debudding.

I talked to a man in Santa Fé a couple years ago who said that was all wrong. He always cut everything out of the middle, so the fruit would be in easy reach on the outside where it got lots of sun.

Oliver Rackham saw this kind of lopping done in the Estremadura of Spain where live oaks are trimmed along the boughs about every nine years. There men believes it increases the acorn crop and lets sun get through to the grass below. The cut wood was used to be used to make charcoal.

Today, people seem to have a memory of lopping, but the only technique they see is the pollarding done by utility companies. The result is a kind of amputation. If a tree is large, its limbs are cut back close to the tree. If a tree is smaller, every branch is removed.

Nature of course does what nature does. If the tree’s an apple, it sends up headers. If there’s no frost, it produces some fruit. If there’s been frosts for several years in a row, it compensates and produces lots of fruit.

Notes: Oliver Rackham and A. T. Grove, The nature of Mediterranean Europe, 2001. He says, what others call Holm oak in the Estremadura are actually a species of wild native live oak (Quercus rotundifolia).

Photographs: All taken in the area 26 February 2015.

1. Recently amputated tree.

2. Amputated apple tree after a year.

3. Apple recently pruned the expert’s way.

4. Lopped apple tree after a year.

5. Recently amputated apple tree.

6. Apple tree that was severely amputated last summer.

7. Apple tree that was severely amputated two summers ago.

Pollards and Copses

Weather: Snow Friday and Saturday. Last snow 2/28.

What’s still green: Juniper, piñon, and other evergreens, yuccas, rose stems; leaves on grape hyacinth, Japanese honeysuckle, alfilerillo.

What’s gray: Salt bushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer.

What’s reddened: Cholla, twigs on peach, apricot, apple, sandcherry and sandbar willow; purple aster leaves.

What’s yellowed: Young stems on globe and weeping willows; arborvitae have browned.

What’s blooming indoors: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Small birds, rabbit tracks.

Weekly update: There are only so many ways to trim a tree: cut it off above, cut it at the ground, trim the edges, or thin the middle. It doesn’t matter which technique is used. A tree or shrub will replace the amputated branches if they are important to its survival.

Oliver Rackham says Englishmen didn’t much care if they pollarded trees several feet off the ground or copsed them level. They were interested in harvesting firewood. Sometimes they wanted fence posts.

The pollarded tree responded with a bolling at the top. A stool formed at the base of a copse.

Pollarding took more effort, but was necessary if a tree was near browsing livestock. The cut was made so high animals couldn’t reach the succulent new growth.

Utility and road departments have been trimming trees here recently. They have cherry pickers which make either method easier. However, they have no use for the sawn off branches. They have to fed to a mulcher and hauled off. They cut the minimum required, then come back in a few years and cut more.

The difference between them is utility companies cut everything from the top down to some point below the wires, while road crews cut whatever threatens traffic and leave the rest.

Ditch cleaners are more likely to cut trees to the group and inadvertently create copses.

There was a time when Native American basket makers would harvest skunkbush limbs they had nurtured by burning them to the ground. Now, there are so few basket weavers they don’t have to worry about sandbar willow. They know they can always find some the right color, the right length, the right thickness this time of year.

No one, Englishman, cutting crew, or Native American does more work than necessary.

Notes: For more on harvesting skunkbush, see the post for 12 April 2009; index at right.

Rackham, Oliver. The History of the Countryside, 1986.

Photographs: All taken in the area 26 February 2015.

1. Pollarded tree under a utility line that’s come back several times. The cluster supporting the new growth is the bolling.

2. Pruned tree near the road that’s put out new growth around the cut end.

3. Trees near a utility pole that have been cut several times. The history is recorded in the thick, twisting trunk base.

4. Trees of heaven that have come back in clusters along a ditch.

5. Siberian elms that formed clumps when they were cut along the same ditch.

6. Tree by the road that has been cut more than once.