Twiggybet1's Blog

am I!  Today my sweet potato slips arrived.  Boy, that sure was fast!  I placed the order less than a week ago.  I had called the grower to make sure that some were available before I mailed in my order, and explained my situation to him.  I suspect he took special care with my order, he had marked all over the box "perishable, live plants, please don't delay".  Here is a picture of the beautiful, healthy-looking slips I received today:

And remember what the previous shipment from a different grower looked like:

What a difference!  I couldn't be more pleased.  You can be sure that I will remember this grower come time to order next year!  I had them in the ground within the hour after the postman delivered them...

look at them standing at attention like so many little soldiers....

 I have been busy in the yard all week.  The front beds got some desperately needed attention.  The peonies needed deadheading and the beds needed weeding and the shrubs needed pruning.  The driveway got cleaned and straightened.   I pulled the weeds that grow up in the cracks in the pavement, and trimmed the wild grapevines that grow over the fence that runs beside the drive.  I planted the free canna bulbs, mostly in planters, a few in a corner bed in the back yard.  There was almost a dozen of them.  They were pretty large, I wonder how big the plants will get.  I hope this wasn't too late in the season to get them in, but they already had eyes and a couple small leaves on some.  I spent a great deal of time on weed patrol, in the vegetable garden and various flower beds. 

The vegetable garden is coming along wonderfully.  We've had a good deal of rain, but not too much to drown us out.  The tomatoes have pretty much filled their cages:

And the corn is almost knee-high already!:

Here is a picture of the back corner of the yard.  Those bushes in amungst the corn are thimbleberry bushes (blackberry).  They are somewhere between waist high and shoulder high on me .

If it doesn't rain tomorrow and we can mow, I should get enough grass clippings to mulch between another row.  The more areas I can cover with mulch, the less time necessary to spend on weed patrol, the better...

Happy Gardening, until next time.....