sweet potatos

I completely forgot about these. When I upended my pots of sweet potato vine in the fall, I found a few had actually formed tubers. I put them in the fridge thinking ha, we'll see how they taste! but being so small they got shuffled to the back, and went unnoticed too long. Oh well.

My vines on the window tank are still doing okay. For a long time I noticed that working in the tank would make my hands feel slightly tacky afterwards. I couldn't figure out why. Then I discovered the windowsill behind the tank was slightly tacky, too. Finally looked at the leaves closely- many were pale and anemic-looking. There were tiny little bugs on the underside of leaves. Aphids, perhaps- they flew up when I disturbed the plants- or maybe whitefly? Whatever the identity I think they are leaf-sucking bugs and leaving sticky residue.

I trimmed some of the sweet potato vine off the top of the tank, cleaned out the worst-looking leaves, and started pinching bugs to death. In early morning, when they aren't moving fast. When temperatures dropped more at night, the bug numbers fell too. I haven't looked for the bugs in about a week now, because the water quit giving my skin that tacky feeling so I think they are mostly gone.