Introducing..... moi

I thought I'd take a moment to introduce you all to your host (moi) and what we are working with, just so you kind of know what I am talking about in later posts, so this will be a bit of an introduction, if you will.

 This is our awesome compost heap, with random bits  of other junk thrown in cuz I am laaaaaazy. The chicken wire is to keep out the dogs who for some reason LOVE eating dirt. We also have a vermicomposting bin but it is currently home to my potatoes, but I will cover that in another post.

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Potato, potahto

My friend Valery has been taking care of my plants for a few months since I've been rambling. Next Friday we are going to participate in a forum together so she is coming in to ABQ and bringing my lovely plant friends and worm bin home to me (I wonder if the worms have survived? I have a new home for them:). I'm most excited because I had a bunch of sprouting potatoes, sweet potatoes and big baking potatoes. Anyway, if you haven't seen a growing potato, they are gorgeous. Sweet potatoes have sort of lovely purple shoots with flowery things at the tips. The regular potatoes look more like tentacles heheh.

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oops, that WASN'T a tomato... am I gonna die now?

Silverleaf nightshade poisoning in livestock (Progress report / Texas Agricultural Experiment Station)Troublesome silver-leaf nightshade susceptible to leaf-gall nematode (The scientists tell me)
There I was, water on full blast (and yet it was a pathetic little trickle) trying to save my roommates plant beds in the front yard. There are a couple that will probably make it but one of the tomato plants might be beyond the pale. Anyway, I turned around to turn off the water and had to walk through the other side of the yard. This side has a couple of nice shade trees but its full of the same strange weeds as the backyard.
As I'm walking back to the knob I see a couple of random plants along the walk that are being smothered by weeds so I give them all a drink and start looking more carefully. Thats when I saw them. They looked like weird tomato plants, kind of short and squat. The leaves were narrow, about an inch and a half long and a sort of silvery green. There seemed to be two types, one with bigger thorns, yellow fruit the size of cherry tomatoes and scalloped edges to the leaves, the other had fruit that was green. It looked sort of like small watermelons. That plant had strait leaves and smaller thorns. They smelled good.

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