Garden Update

So these are the raised beds in the backyard with the arches assembled (finally--and I agree with everyone on Instagram who gripes: "Man, these things are overpriced!"). Now I have to fill each bed with seemingly endless loads of potting soil and mulch and compost ...  Officially, the first day of planting where we live is June 1st so I'm not actually too far behind schedule, which is sort of amazing all things considered.

Here are some of my growing bags filled with sweet potato "slips"--I have no idea why they are called that.  Growing potatoes really couldn't be simpler: you forget about them in the back of your fridge and when they have long stems you either (for white potatoes) cut them into small pieces, each of which should have an "eye" or stem growing from it or (for sweet potatoes) pluck the stem from the tato, stick it in water until roots form, and then plop that rooted stem into dirt.  Potatoes love crappy, rocky, clay soil so even better.  And since you have to "hill up" white potato stems and leaves, the bags are good because you can just top it up as the plants get bigger and bigger. And the black bags get nice and warm in the sunshine, so the tatos think it's July.

And here are the white potatoes (with leaves that look nothing like sweet potatoes) in bags about half filled with dirt.  They were doing absolutely nothing until about 3 days ago and suddenly each plant was about 4" taller every time I looked at it.  It wasn't even that hot--but it was just after June 1st and the potatoes know such things.  The really cool thing about sweet potatoes is that, if you do not pluck off the stems but just leave them on the potato, you can stick the whole thing into an aquarium (suspended so the potato is only about halfway into the water, the roots are in the water and the leaves out of the water) and the roots will oxygenate the water, clean out nitrogen (which kills fish) and also gives the fish something to nibble on, keeping the roots under control and prompting the tato to grow new roots. Isn't nature amazing?  

The rain collection system thus far.  Yes, I wrote a few weeks ago that I hated the yellow color. I still don't love it. But the thought of going to Home Depot and dealing with the place was worse than dealing with the paint.  And, anyway, with all the stuff growing back there, it won't be long before no one can see the things anyway.  So three are ready for set up.  I have two left, both primed, and waiting for yellow paint--which I ran out of and should get more from tomorrow's Amazon delivery.  For those with discerning eyes, yes, that is rhubarb in front of barrel #2.  And, yes, that is a blueberry bush inside the raised bed but in an orange bucket because I haven't yet gotten enough dirt to fill in the bed yet. The plan for those bushes is to get more dirt and then transfer the bushes out of the buckets and into their very own blueberry exclusive bed.  Blueberries are  super hardy but they require extremely boggy, acidic soil--which we absolutely do not have in our yard.  So about 8 or 10 years ago I got TINY sprigs and put them into those buckets and filled the buckets with pine chips, sand, straw and a BIT of potting soil.  Amazingly, they did all right.  But they really need a lot more love than I've given them. I've never pruned them, which (people on YouTube tell me) they "like" occasionally.  The trick is how "occasionally"--not every year as they flower on old growth.  But not too infrequently as then the old growth stops flowering and you have a bundle of useless sticks.  Why is everything so hard? I still can't keep straight which clematis vines need to be cut down to the ground each year and which need to be LEFT ALONE.