Sweet Potatoes and Cranberries

That's right. I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving already. Above is my cranberry that is blooming. I never knew what the flowers looked like before. They are very pretty if a bit unassuming. We planted three of them near my back steps and three near my townhouse mates' back steps. Mine are alive. My townhouse mates have just one left. I found out they were draining their hot tube gadget in that bed. I'm pretty sure it killed them. The idea of giving them extra water was sound, but plants can be very sensitive to some chemicals. Hopefully the last one in the bed will spread out into the spots. The funny thing is earlier their plants were doing better. I think they had more peat moss in the bed. The soil the landscapers brought in was very alkaline so they struggled. We mixed in peat moss and mulched with pine needles. Mine now seems much happier than last year. I'm guessing the pH has lowered a lot. And in a couple of years it will probably be even better.

Last week I cut slips from the two kinds of sweet potatoes on my windowsill (Beauregard and Garnet). I also cut slips from the plants made from slips from Norma (Korean Purple, Purple, some unknown purple, and another unknown). So one bed is going to be the purple sweet potatoes from Norma and one will be the orange kind. As you can see the slips have rooted well in their canning jars.

The purple ones were all planted up today. I think tomorrow I'll get in the orange ones. I had a hard time trying to figure out how far apart to plant them all. Jeavons says 9". A lot say give them tons of space because they will spread and root as they hit the ground. I'm thinking for a short season space like here the best is probably a 9" spacing and to put them in a plastic mulch so they can't try to root anymore. Plus the mulch would add heat that we lack here. I hate plastic mulches though. I really do. So I put them in rows about a foot apart and 9" apart in rows. Almost Jeavons spacing. The orange ones have slightly fewer slips, about 2/3s the amount. So they will be spaced farther apart. I'll see if one spacing seems to work better than the other. And I might add one to the pot by my front door. It will have to share with some flowers and some mint. But I love the look of the foliage and even if it doesn't produce well it will be pretty.

That was today, but yesterday I did a little gardening too when I got back from work. I didn't even come inside, but went straight for the garden. I wanted to get the last of the squash planted. The squash I planted earlier is already up, but I didn't have time to plant the second section too. So I planted two each of Early Butternut and Waltham Butternut. I think in fall my color will be orange with all the squash and sweet potatoes planted.