Ducks4you for 2022

[Rhodie Ranch]

Whoops one more thing.

In the $1 red mesh bag at Fred M's, there were some red potatoes, and three Organic Stokes purple sweet potatoes. I'd like to grow them, 8b in southern WA. Suggestions?

I've never been able to get sweet potatoes, held up by toothpicks, to successfully germ in a glass of water,

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've never been able to get sweet potatoes, held up by toothpicks, to successfully germ in a glass of water,

Heat. They like it warm. What's the warmest spot in your house or greenhouse? Can you make it warmer?

 

[heirloomgal]

It isn't hard to pull the vines away, since they aren't like like peas or beans or pumpkins that latch on. I moved the planter and transported with my wheelbarrow, then dumped in the prepped bed. If you recall I had worked in mouldy grapes and mouldy pumpkin, so they is plenty of food.
I didn't bother to remove the slips from the old sweet potatoes from whence they grew bc there were a lot of roots that I didn't want to disturb. Even most of the old sweet potatoes had started to grow new roots! I hand dug and buried them an inch or two below the soil, then watered thoroughly, didn't count, but I think there were about 10 sweet potatoes with multiple slips. Got house cleaning to do today for family tomorrow, but this week I will put in the last wall to this bed bc they won't be harvested until October. The bed is about 12'square and nobody will walk on it until harvest, and it's on the south side of my big garden bed.View attachment 50041

Amazing ducks, this is a plant I've never grown. It just seems like, like it would be really hard, though I know a gardener in Manitoba who grows them. You are so lucky to have manure and stall bedding, so rich in nutrients. Your sweet potato bed looks so great, I can see the lovely texture of hay or straw.

 

[heirloomgal]

My blueberries are hardly growing. I still had some dried out manure in a bucket, that I used to transport and put in the holes for my tomatoes. I surrounded both feeble looking blueberry bushes with them, decided that I would replace the wooden spacers with 2 of the rusty fenceposts I had removed from grape supports and tie them up. I don't intend them to stay there permanently, but they are easier to see.
Either the blueberries will Love the amendment...or it will kill them and I will buy two more. I planted them last Fall, kept them watered, protected the with a wall of stall bedding with plenty of straw, I have kept them well watered, and this is my reward! My patience is growing thin!

Have you considered a pine needle mulch? My city is famous for blueberries, due to the mining activity that increased soil acidity here. I don't know how similar the blueberries here are to the ones you've got though, I think in the US they're high bushes and ours are low. I picked my first blueberries yesterday.

These are blueberry bushes I found Saturday on a walk with DD a few blocks away. The ground is pretty well carpeted with them in many areas.

It was very close to our house and we didn't realize this bay was so close. The berry bushes overlooked the view. Not bad for berry pickin'!

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Whoops one more thing.

In the $1 red mesh bag at Fred M's, there were some red potatoes, and three Organic Stokes purple sweet potatoes. I'd like to grow them, 8b in southern WA. Suggestions?

I've never been able to get sweet potatoes, held up by toothpicks, to successfully germ in a glass of water,

I like to start sweet potato slips in potting soil. Fill a large nursery pot with potting mix about half way, place the potatoes sideways on the soil and cover with more soil until they are just covered completely. Water and keep in a warm and bright place. In about 2 or 3 weeks you'll see little plants poking out ( or roots growing.). Just let it be and it will grow amazing slips.
When slips are about 6 inches long, pull them off the potato and root them in water and transplant. Keep newly transplanted slips well watered for few days and you should be good! I love growing sweet potatoes. They do great in my heavy clay soil.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Thanks Cosmo. I'll give this a try. I wonder if I'm too late in the season tho.

 

[ducks4you]

Hope everybody's 4th was Fun and NON eventful, like no accidents. WE spent it in our north pasture watching fireworks from 2 blocks away and shooting off some of our own.
MOST important was what DH, me and 2 DD's did on JULY 3rd.
DH had been a HS History Teacher for a small district. He taught a Jr class, and then...was fired. Found out the principal fired all new teachers there to save money, every year. He figured what the heck in the Spring and made a silent movie with his students.
Anyway the class of students really loved him and never forgot their film making experience. They invited him to THEIR 50th class reunion, Class of 1972, and showed the film there, too. Of COURSE many pictures were taken!

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

I'm HS class of 73. Is that what all my class mates look like now?

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Thanks Cosmo. I'll give this a try. I wonder if I'm too late in the season tho.

They take 120 days to mature. So calculate total days until your first frost day. You'll need few more weeks for the slips.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Too late for them, then. I'm thinking of wrapped them up in loose newspaper and putting in a box then down in the basement. Its where I'm going to put my canned goods. Its really the HVAC room, but underground and is very cold. Maybe I can keep them till next year.