Overwintering Roses

Reflecting today on the rose garden that I installed last spring. I’ve never been great with roses in the past so I was slightly intimidated from trying them, especially when I thought about adding an entire garden. Regardless of my past experiences I decided to go for it and put one in. This space was so ugly and weeded and I wanted something to hide the wheelchair ramp and this seems like the perfect option. The decision to put in roses seemed better then any other flowers because there were already several other types of perennials and roses seemed like the best option. Here is a little progression of what I had to work with. Currently I am working on winterizing the rose garden. Since I’m new to caring for them I’m still learning. I’m working on removing the leaves right now and this is to prevent disease overwintering. The next step will be to prune them. 

Growing Sweet Potato’s

Every year I try and grow new things that I’ve never grown before. As my confidence grows, I try and explore the possibilities of different planting techniques and also learn which vegetables are the most successful. Each year I learn which crops that I harvested and used most and the ones that aren’t as desired I learn really quick not to plant them again. I want to make room for produce that will feed us and won’t go to waste. I’m also learning some new ways to preserve some of the veggies that I wasn’t able to eat when they were fresh. When having an over abundance leads to not having time to utilize the food, I feel it’s wasteful and I am grateful for everything that grows. I bought a food dehydrator recently and used it to make dried tomatoes. This made me so happy to be able to put the last tomatoes to use. I’m excited to try making some spices and it will also help with drying some of my other herbs that I love to make teas with. Overall I feel like it’s a smart investment.

Since last summer I was so successful with growing potatoes, I decided to try growing some sweet potatoes this next summer. I think that they will store better and I will definitely eat more of them due to the lower carbohydrate content. Overall I feel that they are much healthier and I can use them in soups and try some dehydrating as well.  I am starting all of the potato slips right now inside in a shallow tray with dirt and I’m now cutting them off and rooting more in water until I have time to plant them in dirt. I bought some cheap dollar store tote bags and I will fill them with dirt and they will grow inside until I am able to plant them out in spring. I have no idea if this is going to work out but it’s fun to try. 

I bought some baby Bonita’s and some baby garnet potatoes because I thought that some mini sized ones would be less wasteful and easier to cook. Here is a picture from the first day that I put them in soil. And about 2 weeks later you can see the leaves starting to poke out. I’ve been cutting these off and rooting in water. 

One of the negatives to starting plants inside is that sometimes you have to deal with gnats which are very annoying. I’ve got several traps set up in the corners of my grow area to catch them. So far they work extremely well. I will keep updating on the progress on these as things change 😊