![\"irisrhizomes.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/irisrhizomes.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThese are iris rhizomes. I spent the morning and a hour this afternoon digging these up out of our raised bed.\u00a0 You have to shear off the individual rhizomes from the mother rhizome, now spent from having thrown up its flower.\u00a0 Cutting the leaves helps reduce transpiration when transplanting and helps avoid transplant shock.<\/p>\n
Normally I would soak them in a bleach solution, then coat them in captan as a way of reducing fungus and other diseases, but these iris were very healthy.\u00a0 Only one had any soft rot and I saw no evidence of iris borer either, so instead of treating them for disease, I spread them out on the same screen door I used to dry the onions.\u00a0 They’ll dry a couple of days.\u00a0 Tomorrow I’ll dig out the lower bed of iris, where all these will go and do the same to them.<\/p>\n
As I sat on the edge of the raised bed, cutting the large fans of leaves and shaving off a clean cut with an old carving knife, a change in front stirred up a fair wind, blowing the leaves on the poplars, rustling them.\u00a0 Doing this kind of work takes me away from everything else, I’m only in the moment.\u00a0 A good feeling.<\/p>\n
Our Country Gentleman corn, now over 8 feet high, didn’t develop adequate stalks.\u00a0 I planted them too close together.\u00a0 As a result, as this wind has whipped them around some of the stalks, burdened now by fat ears, lose the battle with gravity and flop earthward.\u00a0 The corns not quite ripe, but close enough.\u00a0 We had one ear for lunch, a couple more now for supper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
82\u00a0 bar rises 29.65\u00a0 omph ESE dew-point 69\u00a0 sunrise 6:23\u00a0 sunset 8:07\u00a0 Lughnasa Waning Gibbous Corn Moon\u00a0\u00a0 moonrise 2246\u00a0 moonset\u00a0 1316 These are iris rhizomes. I spent the morning and a hour this afternoon digging these up out of our raised bed.\u00a0 You have to shear off the individual rhizomes from the mother rhizome, now … Continue reading Losing the Battle with Gravity<\/span>