Growing Sweet Potatoes as a Houseplant

So you can't have a site with the name 5 Orange Potatoes and not post about an actual orange potato!

What you need: pre-sprouting sweet potato (some food stores treat the potatoes with heat so they won't sprout; to see if you have a sprouter enclose a sweet potato in a paper bag and sprouts should appear in a short amount of time), glass jar, water, knife, and toothpicks (optional)



There are 2 methods of growing the vine: Method #1- We cut the bottom 1/3 off the potato so it would fit snugly in a little mason jar. Only about a 1/2 inch of the potato flesh is submerged into the water; this is all it takes to grow a beautiful vine. Method #2- don't cut the potato; poke 4 toothpicks into the sides of the potato, about 2 or 3 inches from the bottom. A lot more of the potato will be submerged into the water this way. Then balance the potato on top of the jar (which can be quite a balancing act). Either method works fine.



See how only a little bit of our potato is actually under water, only about 1/2 inch.



Keep the water clean by changing the water daily or the potato can cause quite a stink, especially if a lot of the potato is submerged!



After a few days the roots will start forming; then many roots will form daily! After a month take the potato out of the water and plant it in potting soil. This makes a beautiful houseplant. Tie the vines to string and let it grow around a windowpane for a really pretty look. I also have a post on how to grow potatoes indoors. Have a look at Pink and Green Mama's method of growing the sweet potato.

Just a little note about what I'm up to right now, I am working on 2 posts involving those lawn plants some people refer to as weeds (clover and plantain). I have some easy medicine making to share with you. I am also working on a PTOE post on nitrogen. I should have these posted in the next week.

Enjoy!

Miss Green Bean Jeans

Araina's way to collect her green bean harvest!

Beans, Beans, Beans

Baked beans, Butter beans,

Big fat lima beans,

Long thin string beans-

Those are just a few.

Green beans, Black beans,

Big fat kidney beans,

Red hot chili beans,

Jumping beans too.

Pea beans, Pinto beans,

Don't forget shelly beans.

Last of all, Best of all,

I like jelly beans!

-author unknown

Araina's Heavy Harvest

Araina wanted to do all the harvesting in the garden this morning. She harvested: Peppers and

Cucumbers, Araina was fascinated with the "Little White Pokies" on their skin.

Quite the Heavy Harvest for someone that is 6 and only 36 pounds!

Araina's Harvest:

2 Cucumbers

2 Squash
1 Artist's Pumpkin

8 Peppers

A couple snips of Stevia

A couple handfuls of Chamomile Flowers

1 Monarch Caterpillar and 5 fresh Milkweed Leaves for it to munch

Now the Little Ladies are in the kitchen enjoying the bounty with their daddy! More on the Monarch Caterpillar in a future post.

Herbs! Herbs! So Many Herbs!!

A little obsession of mine............lavender, thyme, calendula, rosemary, mint, and any other herb I can get my hands on!!! I can't help myself, I love learning all I can about the many different herbs on this Earth. I have been studying herbs for about 12 years now and am finally feeling as though I'm just starting to get to know them! There is so much to learn; there are so many plants that have real value to humans (and other animals). This summer my herbal focus is on those nasty viruses which hit us hard come winter. I'm learning about herbs and their energies; for example, cayenne has a hot energy, seems obvious, while dandelion has a cool energy. Knowing their energies helps you choose the right herb to treat a hot illness or a cold illness (did you know there are hot illnesses and cold illnesses?). I find this so fascinating!

Here is our living room table right now (my hubby calls it the witchy room). Baskets of freshly picked lavender, sage, clover, basil and mint; trays of chamomile, thyme, red clover, rose petals and calendula. The lavender is bundled and ready to be dried. I have to set up the lavender drying screens tomorrow.

The olive can holds rubber bands; it stays in the harvesting basket so I can bundle as I harvest.

calendula, feverfew, lemon verbena and oregano

I use rubber bands to bundle my herbs for drying, then attach a clothespin for hanging. I had to wire pipecleaners onto my "drying rack" in order for the clothespins to have a place to grip. I also have a trundle bed in the shed leaning against a wall with herbs clinging to it. I have found myself being very inventive when it comes to drying my herbs!

Once dry, the herbs go into thrifted glass jars, recycled jars or canning jars. So far I have a large amount of mint (peppermint, grapefruit, pineapple, lime, catnip, chocolate and spearmint). I also have lemon verbena, lemonbalm, lavender, calendula, chive blossoms, feverfew, rose petals, chamomile, linden tree blossoms, beebalm, dandelion and plantain leaves. These will most likely be used for teas, cooking or anything else calling for dried herbs.

Some herbs don't make it to the drying stage. I use them for medicinal oils, vinegars or hair rinse. I immediately put some chamomile in an apple cider infusion to make a cider rinse for my red hair and Araina's blonde hair. The chamomile adds highlights to your hair. Rosemary cider rinse is good for Fauna's brunette hair.

My little black kitty, Pixie Vixen, likes to watch over the herbs when I am working in this room. I have to hang the catnip high or she will eat it all up. As soon as I bring fresh catnip into the house the cats all come running! We are drying some of the catnip for them, the girls like to make catnip toys.


Soon I will be gathering elderberry for an elderberry/honey syrup that's great for the immune system come flu season. I would LOVE to hear from other "home herbalists" out there; what's your favorite herb and what do you use it for?

Ugh, not liking the lighting in the photos, but this is in a dark area of the house and I really dislike using my flash! I'm such a perfectionist in the need to make this silly statement!

Milkweed Transplant Guerillas

This year we are so excited to report that we have a lot of milkweed naturally growing in our field. We are hoping to find monarch caterpillars all over those beautiful plants this summer. Most of the milkweed is growing tall and some is even almost ready to bloom!


Fauna and I were walking the field trails today and found a lot of young milkweed stretching for the sun right in the middle of the trails.

This is all and good until the man with the mower is out and about. My hubby is very respectful of our wild gardens, but we must always be sure to inform him of what not to cut, (he wants me to provide a ring of laminated cards of the plants he is not allowed to mow over). And since the young milkweed are right in the middle of our trails, their doom is on the horizon. Fauna and I can't handle such a thought!

So we thought we would try transplanting the milkweed right into our vegetable garden. I have read that milkweed doesn't usually transplant well due to its long taproot; but it could work if it's a young plant no taller than 6 inches. Our little milkweeds were little so we thought we'd give it a try. Fauna had trouble digging with her little red shovel (the pretzel could have had something to do with it).

So she moved on to my shovel (she is only 7 and already "borrowing" my shoes).

We dug up 7 young plants and transplanted them right into our vegetable garden. We had to put them in a garden walking path, because this garden is jam packed with vegetables and herbs.

Some of the milkweed drooped right away, but the others are looking ok. We watered them in nicely and now only time will tell. Fauna named them all Mr. Survivor, hoping the positive name will help them grow! I must share an email from my sister Katrina in reference to our milkweed transplanting,

"I have some milkweed that has been growing along the driveway for 3 years, matt (her hubby) really hates the look but wouldn't dare touch them. Don't tell him if your transplanting works, he and I discuss how hard they are to transplant every time we get the mail or bring out the trash."

We are from the same cloth that's for sure! I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

Japanese Beetles

I have had a couple questions asked of me about these dreaded summer visitors. I am by no means an expert but I just had to share a way that might keep these critters away from your plants this summer. I have never tried this before, but I got the idea from Suite 101 and it made a lot of sense to me.

Japanese beetles start sending out their scouts here in Ohio in mid-June. The scouts find the good feeding grounds and send out thier "good grub here" scent, which brings their buddies running at full speed. So the trick here is to catch them early, BEFORE they send out thier "come hither" scent.

Photo by The University of Kentucky

When you see the scouts in your garden it's time to be a little gruesome; you must kill the scouts. Put the dead beetles in a bucket of water which you have added a couple of tablespoons of dishsoap to (the soap is to deter mosquitos). Now the rotting beetles will send a new scent, the "danger, will die" scent. Place the bucket by the plants you had found the beetles on or where past infestations have occurred. Leave the bucket there for a few weeks and continue to add beetles should they continue to visit.

Photo by The University of Kentucky

I am going to try this and was just looking for those scouts today on my roses. For more information on Japanese beetles visit The University of Kentucky Entomology site.

If you haven't already, be sure to enter my felty giveaway; the winner will be announced tonight.

Chive Herbal Vinegar

My mother always plants chive plants with her roses. "They keep away the aphids and prevent black spot," she always tells me. It seems to be true because I have never seen a single aphid or black spot on any of her roses.

Chives are also good for making chive vinegar. For the vinegar you need: about 20 chive blossoms, white wine (or champagne) vinegar and a bottle to keep it in.

Place the chive blossoms in the bottle (the blossoms do not need to be packed tightly).

Add enough vinegar to cover the chives.

Cover and let it steep in a dark cupboard for about a week. The blossoms will tint the vinegar pink and leave you with a STRONG chive vinegar.

Strain out the blossoms, add a little of the vinegar to olive oil and you will have a tasty dressing for your salads. (This could also be another PTOE activity for sulphur). You can use many different kinds of herbs to make herbal vinegars, a rosemary vinegar would be yummy or a basil and chive vinegar. Try different herbs and steep them together to create interesting blends, don't be afraid to experiment. Enjoy!

Wild Violet Tea

Did you know that wild violets are a great source of Vitamins A, C and calcium? The leaves and flowers are edible and have a very delicate taste. We love our lawn violets around here and gather them to crystalize, for teas and salads.

We gathered violets yesterday to make a wild violet sun tea. To make the tea you need to gather leaves and blossoms (preferably after the morning dew dries off the plants), then put them through a delicate wash. We bruised them up a bit and filled our sun tea bottle with the blossoms, leaves and filtered water. Then we placed the bottle in the sun to steep for the entire late morning and afternoon.

While the sun was doing its magic Fauna made a sugar syrup for our violet tea. We got the recipe from our new treasure of a book called "Cooking Fun," by Rae Grant. When our violet infusion was ready we strained out the greens and kept them to make a violet salad for lunch.




The violet tea was a very clear color. We added a bit of Fauna's sugar syrup to sweeten it up a bit.



The girls garnished their cups of tea with a violet blossom.


The ladies thought is would taste like water due to it's clear color, but it had a delicate earthy taste to it. Very refreshing and yummy on this very warm day!


Visit candied flowers to learn how to crystalize your violet blossoms.

Moth Moon Garden

The Hummingbird Hawk moth is one of my very favorite insects. Last summer we had 2 hummers that visited our garden like clockwork, they came around the same time everyday. We always knew what time it was when we spotted a hummer.

The Hummingbird Hawk moth is little different than other moths because it is diurnal and it hovers in the air to feed. It is really fascinating to watch!

We already have a butterfly and bee garden so we decided this year we would call more moths to our garden by planting a moth garden (sometimes called a moon garden). For a moth garden you want light colored plants that have a strong smell and glow in the moonlight. We picked out lots of white and light colored flower seeds for our garden (zinnia, alyssum, chamomile, cosmos, four o' clocks, moonflowers, evening primrose, lantana, flowering tobacco, and daisies). These are just the flowers for the moths to feed on, we are also going to plant some of their larval host trees and plants. The Hummingbird Hawk moth's larval plant is Galium verum (Lady's Bedstraw), we would love to have Hummingbird Hawk caterpillars, so this plant is a must for us!

White Hydrangea photo by Fauna

I had the perfect book to introduce a moth garden to the little ladies, "The Moonflower" by Jean and Peter Loewer. The book teaches us about the moonflower vine and all of the nocturnal creatures that visit this fragrant flower that only opens in the evening.

It was only appropriate to start our moth garden by planting moonflower seeds.

We are big journal writers around here so we recorded moonflower information and the date into our seed journals after planting.

Then we created some of our own moths using pressed leaves and treasures found in the yard.

We still have so MANY more seeds to plant!