Purple Sweet Potato Slips and Odin the Garden Cat

The Okinawa purple sweet potato slips developed awesome root systems. This morning, I separated them from the potatoes and placed them in distilled water. They’re ready for planting.

I was taken back this morning when I checked on the Okinawa purple sweet potato slips. They became bushes in a couple of weeks! Even though I was running late, I could see that they were ready to be trimmed and placed in distilled water for further rooting, that to keep them on the potatoes any longer could spell rot, and that it was a now-or-never moment.

So, I charged upstairs and got the disinfectant, grabbed a sharp cutting knife, and started trimming the slips from the potatoes. In about 20 minutes, I had 6 jars packed with slips. Four jars are for us, and two are for friends. This weekend will be the time to plant them.

Catnip has not been big in our gardens, although I like its fragrance and pretty purple flowers in August. But I just bought a young plant for our flower garden. Our neighbor’s cat, Odin, wanders through our gardens and property all summer long. You won’t hear me complaining: I love cats, and if I wasn’t allergic to them, I’d probably have more than one in the family.

Odin has become our garden cat. He likes to sit in the concrete bird bath when it’s empty, watch wildlife, and survey the land. He’s a graceful, calming presence in the garden. I’ve always loved the marriage of cats and gardens. They just work well together.

So, we’re putting in a patch of perennial catnip for Odin. I have yet to meet a cat who didn’t love fresh catnip. My earlier gardens often included perennial catnip, and all the neighborhood cats would come around and roll on it until it was flat.

Catnip grows quickly and comes back bigger and better each year. Plant it once and forget about it. And cuttings root so easily that if you want, you could be giving friends fully-rooted catnip seedlings for their gardens all summer long.

I’ve watched the documentary ‘What the Health’ about five more times since I posted about it here. I bought it on Vimeo, so I could watch it every day into eternity. This film gives more each time I watch it.

It’s breathtaking how so many agencies – like the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation -  all profess to be about human health and welfare but are so deliberately corrupt, driven utterly by the acquisition of sponsorship money.

Speaking of films, we started watching the documentary ‘A Cluttered Life’ last night. So far so good. It’s not saying anything we don’t already know, but it’s affirming our ideas about minimalism. I’ll keep you posted.

Live in peace.