The back three-quarters of this sweet onion patch has been inoculated with four species of Glomus mycorhizal fungi. They are supposed to increase the yield. Hopefully, they also increase the nutrient content. The roots of the bulblets were covered with a dampened powder of those species, which I got from Fungi Perfecti.

Here are two examples of corn stalks coming out of the ground. One has brace roots, the other has none. The example on top is the one with brace roots. Brace roots form when the plant is not getting the diet that it is genetically programmed to receive. The brace rooted corn stalk in the picture, was grown in poor soil. I have grown sweet corn varieties in our rich garden soil for several years. The corn stalks did not have brace roots. The seed was from home gardening catalogs. One spring I had to buy seed from a commercial farming supplier. The butter and sugar variety grew brace roots in the same rich soil. The corn was so poor tasting that I didn't eat it. The leaves, the stalks and the ears were riddled with holes and worm damage. This corn could not get the nourishment that it was genetically designed to receive from my rich soil. It had been designed for commercial agriculture, where the fertilizers are factory fabricated. The nitrogen that it was genetically designed to utilize was from a petrochemical source. My rich soil only had microbially manufactured nitrogen fertilizer. It rejected this and would not grow well without the kind of fertilizer it was genetically designed to grow on. The potassium that my soil supplied was from microbial breakdown of organic matter in the soil. The potassium that it genetically demanded was potassium chloride. My soil had none of this type of potassium. Over the decades, the shift to the use of factory fabricated fertilizers, and away from the use of microbially produced fertilizers, has caused the genes of the corn plants to adapt themselves to these factory fabricated fertilizers. They have lost the ability to utilize microbially produced fertilizers.

Photo #1 shows the condition of my "soil". It is more rocks than dirt. This is New England. Photo#2 shows a potato plant. I am about to dig the tubers with my hands only. Photo #3 shows some of the potatoes that I have dug. Photo #4 shows me fishing around for the deepest ones. When the soil is this rocky, I build soil on top of the ground. Sixteen inches of leaves were put down. Then 4-6" of horsebarn bedding was put down on top of that. Pumpkins were planted in it the next spring by digging down to the dirt and placing the seeds on the dirt and covering them with an inch of soil. Thus, a crop of pumpkins grew the first summer, while it was decomposing. This spring, I dug down to the ground level and put in a potato and covered it over. These pictures are of me harvesting that crop.

This is the kiwi arbour that we built. The wires are 16" on center. It is two arbours, end to end. Each arbour has nine plants. It measures 24x42'. Each plant is given an area 8'x14'. The plants are set up like a tictactoe board, 3 across, 3 down. The middle plant is a male. The other 8 are females. The plant is grown up in the middle of the 8x14' area to the 6' height of the wires. The permanent structure of the plant is shaped like a capital T, long ways, 14'. New shoots that are saved for fruit grow out from there each year. The old shoots are removed, and new ones replace them each winter, when pruned. We are growing several varieties. The two that have fruited have excellent taste.

These are Jerusalem artichokes, sometimes called sunchokes. They are native to the prairies of North America. These are 9-10' tall and they are invasive. They produce good eating tubers that can be harvested in the fall, all the way through to spring, if the ground is kept from freezing. These were planted here 20 to 30 years ago. We mow around them or till around them to keep them from spreading.

These are called "Matt's Wild Cherry"tomatoes. The color is this intense. At first I thought they didn't taste good. They need to sit on the vine for a week or two, after they turn red. This is the only tomato of the six or seven varieties that I grow that gets no late blight at all. According to the folks at "Totally Tomatoes", a catalog that I order from, there is no variety that does not get late blight. According to Fedco Seeds ,this tomato was found growing wild in Mexico. These tomatoes are approximately the size of the wild tomatoes that I found growing in Hawaii, where I lived a number of years ago.

This is our vegetarian turkey, alias Hubbard squash. Isn't it amazing that the vine can support this heavy squash? It must weigh 10 lbs. or more. I can remember seeing squash vines growing on top of a shed and squash hanging from the vines that were draped over the shed. These squash are good keepers, they will keep til the summer. Their skin is very hard and using a hatchett to open them is common. The squash is at it's sweetest in Feb. and onward.