To Eat or Not to Eat...That is the Question I ask of Thee

 

 I would like to thank my "bestie" from Utah for taking this picture earlier this year and sharing it with me.  I  forgot how this barrel of greenery looked at the beginning of the summer.  

 

For those of you who graced my home this summer, you visually saw my obsession with sweet potato vines.  I had them growing in various location throughtout my yard, but this particular one that you see here, spiraled out of control!.  Unfortunately, I don't have an end of season photo that features this "beast" of a plant but I will tell you this.......it grew taller than the spike in the middle, consumed the petunas and grew out into the driveway and roadside.  We were actually running over it's monster like tentacles with our vehicles.  I have to admit part of me wanted to ripped it out a couple of months ago but Michael insisted that it remain. OK FINE!!! 

 

Now it is mid October and it is time to exhume my gorgeous annuals(tear, tear).  I always approach this time of year with mixed emotions.  I am saddened because the color and beauty they display will cease to exsist but I welcome the relief that it brings from the daily task of nurturing them. The weather has cooled down considerably and my plants are definitely enjoying a reprieve from the hot, scorching, summer heat but I know within a week our two things will start to freeze including myself therefore it is my duty to give these beautiful florals and seed-baring plants a humane burial and send them into their next photosynthesis producing after life.

 

My knowledge of botany is extremely limited and I emphasize "extremely"! Tubulars, bulbs and roots amaze me the most because they are timeless maybe even infinite.  They keep going and going.  Here's "MY" scientific definition of these types of plants for whatever the hell it's worth!  They store food for the winter, hibernate, endure extreme weather and then are resurrected back to life in the spring.   

How they do it I will never know, but it is fasinating! 

 

I have grown several root type plants over the years but never potatoes which brings us back to my whiskey barrel full of sweet potato vines.  As I was excavting this gnarly web of vines.... low and behold attached at the end was THIS.........

I was shocked! Remember, the knowledge of  botany that I possess is exceedingly vague.  I was under the impression these particular vines were..... UM....LETS SAY.......STERILE!   I thought they were bred for beauty not produce!