By far the coolest garden addition attempted this year were sweet potatoes!
this was actually one big one that broke when I was digging them out. I am not the best at that yet.....
They dont grow like regular potatoes do.
Well, they are a root crop. They tubers grow under ground and the vegetation above.
But then they become different.
Potatoes grow "eyes" when they get older. These are seed potatoes now. You can cut them into pieces, as long as each piece has an eye or root attached, it should start a whole new potato plant.
You make a trench and toss your potato seed in, fill the trench. As the tubers grow along the stems of the growing potato plants, you will need to "hill" your rows or bury the stems at least 3 times in the growing year to mound the potato plants for a good yield.
first trenching of a row of potatoes
Now the sweets!!
They are vining plants. The more greenery on top, the more tubers underground.
They are started by letting a good disease free tuber grow vines, or slips in an attempt to go to seed.
You place your tuber in soil, keep it moist and in light (these were started in my grow room) amd this starts to happen:
babies!!!
I started with a dozen sweet potatoes amd ended up making 52 healthy slips or plants from them. See how the vines get so long? I clone them into more and grow them in trays of 52.....but I will have lots of winter posts showing that stuff once I start seeds for next year ;)
my row of sweets mid season...the vines totally took over by the fall
with vines cut off digging tubers out begins. Over half my bed is still underground, we have only had 2 dry days to get to them
hard to see but very long tuber here
So thats what I know about growing sweets so far. Looking forward to harvesting the rest of the crop, I will post pics of the haul!
Cheers and have the best day!
