![\"orchard-installation-day-3decay.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/orchard-installation-day-3decay.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhile documenting the orchard installation, I also took some shots of the vegetable garden in late September.\u00a0 This photograph has our heirloom Cherokee Purple tomatoes in their senescence.\u00a0 The asiatic lilies with the tall tan stems of wilted leaves look much the same in terms of their life cycle, but in fact are different.<\/p>\n
As annuals, the Cherokee Purples put all their effort into fruit, then the plant dies.\u00a0 As a result, we have had a bumper crop of tomatoes, all raised from four seeds planted in April of this year under the lights of the hydroponic system.\u00a0 We can, and I will, save seeds from these now dead plants.\u00a0 Those seeds, because these are not hybrids, will produce Cherokee Purple tomatoes again next year, but those plants, like these, will give their life for the existence of those fruits.<\/p>\n
The asiatic lilies have a different survival strategy.\u00a0 If the blooms go to seed, the lilies will produce a small fruit filled with tiny seeds, true, but the lily has more options than the tomato plant.\u00a0 Some of the lilies produce bulbils, small bulb like growths at the point where leaf meets stalk.\u00a0 These begin to sprout when the stalk falls over in the fall, or, when the gardener clips off the stalk and transfers them to soil.\u00a0 I did just that with a few this year.<\/p>\n
The main strategy of the lily, however, lies below ground.\u00a0 Yes, the stem and leaves die back and will fall over to rot like the tomato plants, but beneath the soil the leaves have, all season sent food down to an underground storage bunker, a bulb with many scales.\u00a0 Left in place this bulb will throw up another lily stalk next spring, or, as is the case with many I planted in the perennial garden a couple of weeks ago, each scale go into the ground and will produce a new plant.<\/p>\n
When I took this photograph, both survival strategies were on my mind as was the financial bail out proposal in Washington.\u00a0 It occurred to me that growth, flourishing and decay are the rule in the plant and animal world.\u00a0 My 62 year old body reminds me of this daily.\u00a0 Any one with a sense of history knows the same is true of civilizations, peoples and the institutions within civilizations.\u00a0\u00a0 The Great Wheel reminds us that the very same cycle is built in to the temperate seasons.\u00a0 To come into being, struggle, then produce tangible fruits is the nature of life itself, just as are aging, withering, death and decay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
60\u00a0 bar rises 30.07\u00a0 2mph N\u00a0 dew-point 59\u00a0 sunrise 7:06\u00a0 set 7:00\u00a0 Autumn Waning Crescent of the Harvest Moon\u00a0 rise 5:12\u00a0 set 6:05 Today and tomorrow will be full gardening days.\u00a0 There are bulbs to plant: daffodils, hyacinths, snow drops, many tulips and garlic.\u00a0 Sprinkler heads need coaxing.\u00a0 Mulch sits over at the Anoka County … Continue reading Senescence<\/span>