Yes! I succeeded! I AM Vadna's granddaughter!
I planted sweet potatoes from starts I got in a co-op produce basket. They were late. But they got water this summer. Beautiful plants; if you haven't seen the leaves of a sweet potato plant, they are a stunning green. They actually make a great ground cover. However, as typically happens in our garden, there is more fail than fruit. The squash results were minimal. Really. You hear horror stories of overabundant zucchini and how to get rid of it. Chilies did well but I can't eat them anymore. We can't kill the rosemary, but it's an herb. I ate and juiced chard then lost it when we put in a block fence. The lettuce and arugula did fine til the heat set in. Overall, I have visions that never quite bloom and develop fruit. So the sweet potatoes just sat, and I forgot.

Winter came on. And then it got cold-last week there was ice on the dog's water bucket. I broke it out and tossed it aside. It was still there when I fed him that night. This is Mesa, AZ for heaven's sake. Ice and snow may form, but they melt in the morning. At the first hint of cold, the sweet potato leaves turned black. When the frost warning came out, we covered the chilies. The rosemary is on it's own.

It's the end of January. In Mesa AZ, it's time to be considering what you want to see sprouting in spring and summer. I am ever hopeful. Every year I imagine what I would like to eat and preserve. However, I'm finally getting realistic. I am tired. My strength and endurance are fragile. I have no guarantee of how I will feel at the end of a day and be able to do. I haven't worked out in 2 months and I feel the weakness setting in. Within a month, I will be spending longer hours at work, tutoring and encouraging students, because...that's a whole 'nother post and I don't want to talk about it. So I have to scale down my dreams. Because I have the best husband. He will plant whatever I want. But then he has to tend it and do my work. And I'm not really okay with that. I monitor carefully what I ask him to do cuz he'd try to do it all. I don't want to abuse the darling man. So I found 5 pots of herbs. I've had luck with lemon thyme, oregano, and parsley. I'm trying sage and cilantro.

I got home early on Tuesday and went out to clear a small section and put the herbs in. To my great surprise and delight I found these.

That's alot of water for these little gems. But hey! They grew. We do use the drainage from the evap cooler to supplement the tap water.

I had a meeting today so left at 3:30. Yea! And I promised myself 15 minutes in the garden. Just to till and clear the ever encroaching Bermuda grass and roots in another lil ole patch. And found these!!! Yahoo!

Now I'm feelin' good! But wait...maybe those dead stick-looking things mean something. It occurs to me that I'm looking at a dead sweet potato plant and dug around and SCORE...

Yes Vadna, my grandmother, famous in Douglas, AZ for her flower gardens and homemade ice cream, would be proud of me. (Well, technically, my grandmothers were proud of me no matter what, BUT her green thumb showed up for a second in me!!)

I get ready to wash them off and a vague thought tickles my memory...sweet potatoes have to cure, so I google it and yes, curing occurs in 85 degrees with 80% humidity. That doesn't happen at the same time at anytime in Mesa. So I called my dad to verify that creating a greenhouse may be a viable solution. So they are on the barbecue under plastic secured with bricks. For a week or so.

But still...I had gardening success!! Vadna's love of flowers, fruits, vegetables and gardens lives on in Mesa AZ!