I ordered some seed potatoes from SeedsNow. They never have them in the spring when I need them, so I'm taking a risk and buying them in the fall, hoping they will last over winter to be planted in the spring. I picked out Purple Majesty, Red Thumb (fingerling) and King Edward varieties. The King Edward one has had me intrigued for a while now. It's a white potato with pink spots where the eyes form.
As some of my regular readers might recall, we planted several varieties of potato this year and built custom potato towers. I think the soil stayed too moist though, because we did not get a single potato harvested. Not one. I will have to track down Purple Viking potatoes again in the spring to try again, and this time I won't water as often. I didn't realize how dense the soil was and how much water it was holding in rather than draining away. I will remove the current dirt and start over with some other kind in the spring to see if I get better results. I also plan to move the potato towers much further away from the barn to discourage the birds from nibbling the toxic greens of the plants. We lost several birds this summer and fall due to what appears to be poisoning from eating the potato plants. All of the illnesses and deaths happened within 24-48 hours of the potato plants being eaten, and the illnesses have stopped since the potatoes have died back due to the cold weather. I'm not sure where I will put them, but I'm sure I can find somewhere. There's plenty of space here.
In going through the seed collection to get ready for the upcoming seed swap (done through one of the Facebook groups I'm in), I'm getting antsy to start planting again. I think I might try a few varieties indoors over the cold months to tide me over until we can get back to Winter Sowing in January and beyond.
I finally got the hanging basket I've been wanting so I can transplant the Pothos cuttings I put in water a while ago. Four of the five cuttings have rooted out now, so it's time to move them to soil. I think four little cuttings in a hanging basket would be appropriate. Then I can take some more cuttings and put them in the glass ornament vases to see if we can make even more. I do love my Pothos plant. It's the first houseplant that's lasted over a year without me somehow killing it. I'm notoriously bad at either over-watering or forgetting to water my houseplants. I always have been.
As a child I remember those neon colored cactus plants you could get at the drug store. I killed a couple of them in a row from watering them too often and they'd rot from the base. I remember the last one was pink, and my mother told me if I killed it she wouldn't buy me anymore. I remember taking it outside so it could get direct sunlight and crying as I begged it to get better and not die (it fell over and died the very next day). It broke my heart as a child to know I couldn't even keep a plant alive, and it really deterred me from trying gardening until I was much older (some 25+ years later). Alas, here we are, with giant garden plans, and orchard in the making, and a house plant I've now successfully made cuttings from. I'm so proud of how far I've come!