Spring Migration: Hummingbirds are here

So happy to report a hummingbird stopped by my yard today. It spent time on the red sage, pretty much the only flower blooming in the garden apart from the pink salvia greggii. The pictures are terrible because I had to capture it from inside the house through the window screen. But I am posting them as a record of the sighting.

I have researched and planted native plants in my garden in an effort to attract birds and pollinators. We live in the migration corridor. So every spring and fall we expect to see hummingbirds and monarch butterflies. It is such a pleasure to see these little creatures dancing around the garden feasting on the plants we put out for them. 

I know a lot of people put out feeders. I do not. I cannot believe there is anything good in white sugar and water. It is devoid of all nutrients. Instead the nectar produced by the plants has an abundance of nutrients to nourish their little bodies. If you are on planning on putting out feeders I encourage you to plant native species instead.

Homemade Sweet Potato Slips

Last month I found a purple sprouting sweet potato in the pantry. It had obviously been left too long. I read somewhere that the tubers grow slips and that you can grow a sweet potato plant with them. I have decided to carry out an experiment. I hope to harvest sweet potatoes this fall. 

I cut out the sprouted end and used the rest of the potato for cooking. I pierced 3-4 toothpicks in the sprouted end to provide support and placed it in a glass of water. I placed the glass on a window sill. My window is south facing and gets direct sunlight all afternoon. I believe some sunlight throughout the day should suffice. I have changed the water every other day. I am using tap water. Two weeks into the experiment I got this. 

I think it is ready to plant in the garden and my vegetable bed is ready for it. But I have decided to wait a little longer. I want stronger roots to give the plant the best chance of survival. I will update on the progress of this little experiment in the next few weeks.

New Year New Blog

 Welcome to my new blog. Here I plan to record the seasonal changes in my garden. I hope this blog will help me look back at everything we did in the garden during a given month or season. I plan to add lots of pictures to help me remember how the plants and beds looked over a period of time. I hope this record helps you as you work on your garden. If you find the content useful please leave a comment.

What kind of garden I am talking about? And what does it look like today? We live in what used to be the Blackland Prairie, hence the blog name, My Garden Prairie. When we bought this house we inherited a typical suburban garden with non-native shrubs and a lawn. The kind of garden that provides no food or shelter to birds or pollinators. The primary purpose of this garden is to look manicured all year around for the humans who live and work in the area. We lived with it for far too long until last year we decided to redesign the space.

Last year we cleaned out the flower beds in the front yard and removed some shrubs - mainly Holly. We ripped out the old rusty metal border and replaced it with pavers. We did all the work ourselves. We planted a lot of native plants and added mulch for weed control. The plants were dormant through the winter and have just started growing again. But that is a different post.

In the backyard we have a few built out raised beds. We are cleaning them out one at a time and adding good soil with compost. The bed in the picture below had a downspout emptying into it. You can see the remnants of the pop ups to disperse the water. When we had the gutters replaced they took the downspout around the corner and saved the bed from excessive moisture. It is now ready for planting but I am not sure what I will plant here. Got a nice picture of a Bobcat visiting us last week.

The bed below is another raised bed in the backyard. It was a mess too. The downspout drained into it directly and the soil was always moist. It was not possible to move the downspout so we disconnected the pipe that dumped water in the bed and put in this temporary attachment. It is working well to keep the bed dry but it has to be drained out after it stops raining. We will need a permanent solution soon but for now this works. I planted some greens in this flower bed last fall. They sprouted but didn't grow much. I hope they will take off now as spring has arrived.

Gardening was big on the spring calendar this year but as the virus makes its way into the US we are forced to work from home. Last week my office and all the offices in the state went into lock down. My commute was very short to begin with but now it is zero. That should give us a lot of time in the garden. If we all do our part we should be back in the office in summer.