Corn! Here are some of the first cobs from this year’s corn harvest in the Big Back Yard. On the top left is Delware Blue Corn, top right is Seneca Round Nose Corn, bottom left is 1,000 year old corn, and bottom right is Iroquois Hominy Corn. No matter how hard we try, there is always some cross pollination with the corn, so one of the Delaware Blue Corn cobs cross pollinated with appears to have been the Seneca Round Nose Corn. We just won’t save these individual kernels for the collections.

Tobacco! The tobacco have returned from their space journey and are settling into their home on earth. Come to the Big Back Yard over the weekend to see them. They’re under a sign labeled “tobacco” near the Hopi Red Dye Amaranth patch.

Squash! The squash has bounced back after its nearly devastating infestation by the squash vine borer. Even though we trapped well over 100 adult vine borer moths in our trap this summer, some seem to have managed to escape its captivating pheromones and laid their eggs on our squash. We managed to save parts of the plants by mounding dirt over the vine in several places, which then caused it to sprout roots. We then cut off the infected area, leaving the unaffected vine portions to grow. Hopefully we will be able to have a few more squash develop before the first frost in  five weeks or so.