Hey! Thanks everyone. Jay, that's very kind of you to offer to send me some, but I put a couple of cuttings in a glass of water yesterday and I can already see root nubs starting to poke out, so I think I'm probably good. I appreciate your "gardener's generosity", though. Looking forward to some sweet potatoes in September or so...

Thought I would post an update. I ended up with six plants that I transplanted out to the garden around the July 4 holiday. Made two hills and planted three plants per hill. Plants grew nicely in spite of having a rather cool summer. Initially after planting out some unknown insect creature did serious damage to the foliage but it stopped, never reoccurred, and the plants recovered. I know deer love browsing on sweet potato vines so I placed the hills inside my electric fence to protect them from this potential issue. Dug up plants yesterday, harvested 16 pounds of sweet potatoes. I was very happy with the results considering it was a rather cool summer. Biggest mistake I made was that the potted plants got root bound, with roots circling inside the pots. Really had no choice as I could not plant sooner due to heavy rains and cold temps in June. I broke the roots up as best I could when I planted but still got a few goofy shaped tubers, which is no big deal to me. Had sweet potatoes for dinner last night, they were nice but a bit on the bland side. Was not surprise at this because last winter when I bought the original one for rooting I bought a few extras to try and thought those bland as well. Was the whole thing worth it? In the end probably not, but it did not take much effort and it was a fun experiment. It was the first time I succeeded in rooting a store bought sweet potato. I am still against purchasing slips mail order, so if I cannot purchase slips locally at the proper time then starting them myself is the only option. -Tom

Looks like a nice melon forming. It is still very green, probably has a couple weeks to go. The netting will develop a lighter color and the green background will also lighten from green to yellowish. If you have several melons on the vine, they will likely not all ripen at the same time, so you will be able to compare one against the other to tell when the color change is occurring. At that point, the stem will easily slip from the melon with a gentle tug. In addition, I find that I can smell the sweet aroma of a ripe cantaloupe when I am within a few feet of the ripe melon, but my main key is always the color change to show me the melons to look at, and the stem slipping easily is the deciding factor. If it doesn't slip, then it's not ready.

So I did a test run this weekend with the slide. It has been 3 days and so far the lawn has recovered nicely. The only noticeable damage is in the center part of the slide where all the grass has laid down sideways. I jumped on this right after taking down the slide by gently raking the grass upright and watering well (odd as it sounds). The soil under the slide was still bone dry after we finished up. I figured a good soaking would help the stressed grass recover better. I will add: prior to testing the slide, we hadn't had rain in 11 days. My sandy soil had been dried out for well over a week. Add to it high daily temps in the high 80's, and pushing 90 several days. Needless to say the lawn was already stressed badly before setting up the slide. So my pre-slide lawn prep will be as follows: - Starting 2 weeks before the event I will stop cutting the grass. (I want it to be very tall on the day of) - Starting now I will be adding a round of Milorganite fertilizer. (Been wanting to do this anyways to improve the soil) - Starting 2-3 weeks before the event I will begin watering the grass to ensure it is all healthy and actively growing. (I don't water at all right now) - About 4-5 days before the event I plan to cut the grass adjacent to the slide where people will be walking back up to the top. I am not going to setup the slide early. It only took me about 20 minutes to prep the slide this time around, and during the event I will have plenty of eager helpers. The morning of the event I am going to get out early and water the area under the slide before putting the slide down. This should soften the soil a bit and make the ride a bit smoother (Something I should have done during the test run...ouch) The landing "pool" will be a separate sheet of poly that is black to keep the water warmer. This "pool" will be constructed with pool noodles underneath to form the bowl shape, prevent injury, and make setup and tear down a breeze. I took pictures, but will have to post them separately. I will keep you posted!