Laundry Baskets, Sweet Potatoes, Storage Bins

Had a solo lunch break a couple of days ago and I was on a mission! Most of the time Tom and I can only hit one place because well, there are two of us and one or both of us often times will become distracted by something which results in not maximizing my lunch break. When I was lunching alone and I had errands to run AND an hour to get them done I could get all sorts of things done, but only if the places I needed to visit were in Beautiful Downtown Hazel Dell.

LAUNDRY BASKETS

SO the first thing I wanted to check out - the laundry basket situation at the Dollar Store. I wasn't sure that they had them, since I have never looked for them there before. So, I jet down to the store which is just over a half mile from the station, very convenient. Parking was perfect and into the building I marched and within a couple of minutes I found my laundry baskets...

What on earth am I going to do with these dudes? Well, a couple of months ago I was cruising through Pinterest and came across another way to grow potatoes...in LAUNDRY BASKETS?! It looks easy enough - and really potatoes are not that hard to grow. So that went on my list of methods to try. Last season  was the conventional dig a hole the ground and drop in a piece of potato. The method from two years ago involved no digging, but a lot of straw. Both were successful, but the in-ground method was best.

All  I need to do with the laundry basket place a layer of soil in the bottom and place the potatoes on top and add a little more soil and proceed as usual. The BEST part I don't have to take up any space in the raised beds to grow them this way. There will be an update as the season goes on.

SWEET POTATOES

The next stop I wanted to make would be at Chuck's Produce another couple miles down the road from the Dollar Tree. I love the store, but the parking lot is terrible! It's even more terrible when it is raining! Dashed into the store and bee-lined to the produce and located the Organic Sweet Potatoes which some were labeled as YAMS...grrrr....Anyway, went away with these two which I think are the Beauregard variety. So the flesh should be a nice bright orange. At $1.99/pound I think we'll get many slips per potato and get waaay more potatoes to boot. My initial investment in this...$3.63 (I think) Less than Gurney's who have 12 plants for $9.49. I hope to get at least 12 slips from these two tubers.

I had it in my mind to grow them last year or the year before and after reading up on how to grow/harvest them I wasn't sure that I really want to try them out. Until last week, I didn't know how to get plants or seeds or whatever it is that they grow from. THEN if I did figure out how to grow these things I would still have to do something to them to get the sugars to develop in them...oh boy.

Just did a quick search - yeah, these will take some effort to make sure that I don't ruin these. IF they work.

I guess I will never know until I try. Do something, even if it's wrong...at least you try right?

STORAGE BINS & SEEDS

There are a couple of things that I REALLY like - Fabric and Seeds. Two totally different things, but each so easy to buy. When we go to a store that has fabric I usually end up in the fabric section and somehow find something to buy.

It's not too different with seeds. The racks with all sorts of seeds for veggies, flowers and herbs...oh yeah - LOVE IT! Catalogs are pretty fun for me  too. I love the colorful packages whether they have a picture of the item or if it's an illustration. The BEST packets have a little window so you can actually see the seeds - those are fun too!

Over the past few years I have been collecting seeds like nobody's business - since I never really paid much attention to what I already had I would always get new seeds. Sometimes I would remember that I needed more of this, that or the other thing.

Until last year I wasn't taking care in storing my seeds. Most of the time they would just be in a pile in the old garage and getting covered with spider webs and other old building yuck. Last year I had an extra container that is shoe box sized and I decided it was time to treat my seeds nicely and put them in the box - what a novel idea! I used a few of the seeds that we had  stored, but I also bought a fair amount of seeds for last year's garden. The box  ended up pretty full at the end of the season and I also ordered seeds from Johnny's Seeds for my fall/winter garden. Yeah, it's pretty much an illness...

I'm not good at planning what I want to grow from year to year. I usually just choose the things that I have grown before that worked and don't think much further than that. Now I'm expanding what I want to experiment with and my seed selection is growing!

So, now I have a box that is full, Full, FULL and I needed a bigger box...

So I made my way back to Target (across the street from my office) and found this set. Which included 5 bins in 4 sizes and I have been successful in making use of each one AND giving Mary the original bin for her seeds. There are two small containers that are seed packet sized so I have placed the seeds that I have already sowed in one and the other has seeds that I want to sow - this coming week. The great thing is that I can store the two smaller containers within the large bin and the rest of the seeds will be stored in that one as well. Have these containers will help me stay organized. If I can't keep things in the house organized at least I can keep the garden stuff organized and easy to find!

This garden season wil be epic! That's right....EPIC!