Lofty goals: in a minute there is time...

[asphodel]

...Or, y'know, sweet potato. Can you plant sweet potato with roses? The harvesting might be a bit difficult...

The irrigation system is still probably a good idea, however.

Comments

[oraxia]

Potato is apparently a lot easier if grown in buckets, both for harvesting and also for the mounding required to get a decent yield. I assume it is approximately the same for sweet potatoes, since they have a similar vine pattern? I actually threw some baby potatoes that had sprouted into a pot recently, but need to buy more dirt to mound them up with. Basically, you plant them in the bottom with just enough dirt to cover them up a bit and let the stalk grow a bit upwards, then bury it up to the tip again and rinse, lather, and repeat until you've filled the bucket. All the various leaf axils will, once interred, turn into roots and in most cases a new potato. (Tomatoes benefit from similar treatment, because they're related plants.) The bucket keeps vermin out (the tunneling kind) and helps with drainage, as a common problem with potatoes is rot from water pooling around the potatoes in the ground. Also, it's a lot easier to harvest without accidentally breaking or spearing your potatoes while digging them up!

As for roses, I hear they like having used coffee grounds mixed into the dirt around them for the extra acidity. You can get bags of used coffee grounds from a Starbucks if you ask, apparently, although I haven't done it myself. I don't have anywhere to use that much used coffee grounds :/ Yet. Roses seems simple, but I guess there's a trick to pruning them and such which I've yet to learn myself. At some point I'll have to find out when I can volunteer at the Rose Garden out here, and then maybe I'll know what to do ^^;;

[asphodel]

I'd love to try that method of planting potatoes/sweet potatoes sometime! Something else to add to my list. :)

So roses like acidity, then...? I'll have to do a bit of research before attempting this, heh.

[oraxia]

The 5-gallon buckets or whatever from Home Depot and whatnot seem to be a favorite for this style of potato growing, provided you drill holes in the bottom for drainage (because sitting water -> rot).

Yes, they do :) Also, if you end up planting a bunch of roses, apparently you can make a pleasant jelly out of rose hips (which is basically the fruit of the rose plant, if we weren't busy snipping all the roses off to stick in vases). They're edible, just kind of tart, hence where making a jelly of them seems to help.