What is this?

I did my usual potato planting this spring, even though I haven’t had much luck in the past years. But I had two big pots on my back deck where the birds eat and poop, so I cut up some of my store-bought potatoes and planted them. I didn’t want anyplace where I could plant some food going to waste. These days we try to grow as much of our own food as possible which will save us money. Also, that way we’ll know the food is coming from right here and not some foreign country. I have nothing against foreign countries. Most of my clothes are either made or “assembled” in a foreign country – probably by little children working in sweat-shop conditions. I try not to think about that when I wear the clothes. I also planted some rosemary which I never ate, some chives which I did eat occasionally and some parsley. This morning I threw them all in the garbage as they were all worn out!

As for the potatoes, I decided to see if I had grown any. Last year there were lots of plants that came up but very few potatoes – and they were very small, actually pretty tiny. This year there were no plants coming up except this one weed. I decided to just let it grow, so I watered it and waited for my potatoes to start sending up plants. They never did. So the other day I dug into one of the pots and found the old potato pieces I had planted in the spring! There were no sprouts on them. They were all dried up and icky. But the weed is going strong! I decided to take a picture of it and it’s on this blog. But what the heck is it? Right now it’s 3 feet tall. Will it keep growing and growing? Do you suppose I can eat it? Maybe I could use it as seasoning in spaghetti . . . oh, I forgot. I don’t make spaghetti. But I do make meat loaf and use all sorts of seasonings in it. Maybe that would work and it would taste delicious. People would hear about my special plant and shower me with money for just a piece of it! Now I must go outside and try to rustle up some wood to make a fence around my plant to protect her from predators. I also must think of a name for her. I’ll do that another day.

Larry and his bird buddies still come all the time. Sometimes they get along together and other times they chase each other off. But they seem to do quite well most of the time. They hop up to my sliding glass door and peer in at me – all they see is me peering back at them. We amuse each other! Charley the squirrel keeps coming every day. Whenever I see him, I run screaming to the door and throw an empty, plastic gallon milk jug at him as he leaves. I guess it’s a sort of game we play. It doesn’t seem to have much effect on him. I don’t know what the people walking down the street think when I came screaming out the door, throwing things. I’m probably known as “that crazy woman down the street,” but that’s just fine with me.

I wish I had a potato picture to put up, but I may never have one again. I have the pictures of my dad and me planting potatoes every spring. I wish he were still here so he could give me some advice on growing them. I just wish he were here.