ysabetwordsmith | Friday Yardening

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Today is sunny and mild. I went out and watered plants, then gathered and planted wildflower seeds.

The farmers are out harvesting the corn around our house today. Not quite half the fields in the area are down.

Squirrels are nutting like mad. I keep finding piles of cracked walnut shells.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4463257.html

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From:

curiosity

How tall did the corn get out there? Here it never hit five feet in most places. :(

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Six to six and a half feet, maybe?

From:

curiosity

Interesting. One thing I love about corn is that it's a pretty good indicator of climate change.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Yep.

I don't think it's a very good year, though. Farmers around here are harvesting soybeans while the corn stands in the fields, falling apart. I suspect some fields have been abandoned.

Another indicator species: apples. Another orchard near us has started offering Arkansas Black, a southern variety. When southern apples ripen to an edible state in the north, you know things are really fucked up.

From:

curiosity

Sometimes if the corn grows wonky, they'll let it stand and plow it under. The corn around here died in mid-July. Hit five feet, yellowed before the tassles browned, and then wilted. I don't think those ears will be too tasty.

Wow. Yeah, apples are a good indicator too. Arkansas Black in Illinois. O.o

The trees are the wrong color green down here, too. The leaves lost their gloss in freakin' April. And we aren't getting an Autumn spread. One day the leaves are their dull, too-dark green and the next day they're brown and the whole tree looks like tinder. The only trees with Autumn colors are the ones throwing up distress signals because these morons keep spraying pesticides on them.

Also, a huge portion of the Leland Cypress fell over dead this year. Landscapers are pretty baffled because it was a pretty fast and pretty species specific die-off. Reminded me of coral reefs.

Edited (Forgot about the Leland Cypress.) Date: 2017-09-30 06:40 pm (UTC)

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>> Sometimes if the corn grows wonky, they'll let it stand and plow it under. <<

Yes, I've seen that.

>> The corn around here died in mid-July. Hit five feet, yellowed before the tassles browned, and then wilted. I don't think those ears will be too tasty. <<

:(

Here it's just a bit stunted because the weather was wrong. A lot of small ears, but most stalks do have something.

>> Wow. Yeah, apples are a good indicator too. Arkansas Black in Illinois. O.o <<

It's been quite a while now since the orchard south of us launched them. I was extremely dubious, having tasted failures of same before; but the owner cut one open and it was delicious. The orchard we just saw add them is nearly an hour north of us, and probably more than an hour north of the southerly orchard. :/

>>Also, a huge portion of the Leland Cypress fell over dead this year. Landscapers are pretty baffled because it was a pretty fast and pretty species specific die-off. Reminded me of coral reefs. <<

Alas! That's called a stand-replacing event, when most or all of the trees die at the same time. It's often caused by wildfire or pest plagues, but severe drought or other terrible weather can do it too.

From:

curiosity

Now I want to head out to the nearest orchards and see what apples and peaches they did this year. I'm curious to see if they shifted varieties as well.

Yeah, it was a pretty obvious thing since they're big for landscaping purposes down here. And a lot of new landscaping trees and such died off, too, because the clods didn't water the new transplants properly if at all. Which is a separate issue. But the cypresses were all pretty well established specimens that up and croaked. The drought is going to make lots of toys for the next hurricane to play with.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Sadly, I had to make a rule that if a drought kills established plants, I don't replant the same species. The carrying capacity will no longer support them. :(