So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

KimB

Sweet Potatoes

By now, most will know of my determination to grow potatoes and I've added a new obsession to my potato list: sweet potatoes.

I have always liked the folk lullaby about sweet potatoes and remember recordings of the song and in particular, a lovely version done by Odetta. Perhaps that is what gave me a head start on liking them so much.

Soon as we all cook sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato
Soon as we all cook sweet potato, eat 'em right straight up

Soon’s we touch our head to the pillow, to the pillow, to the pillow
Soon’s we touch our head to the pillow, go to sleep right smart

Once, I took my friend from Belarus to a salad bar that had sweet potatoes as part of the buffet. She had never seen had one before, so I explained what it was. She said in astonishment, “How can a potato be SWEET???!!!” and refused to try it. Later on though, she got up the courage to try it; now it's one of her favorite dishes and she eats them regularly.

Of course one of the problems in the US, is we have the names of yams and sweet potatoes backwards. Yams are sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes are yams. It doesn't matter that much when you eat them, as they have similar tastes, but it's confusing all the same.


Sweet Potato vs Yam

I had purchased a number of organic sweet potatoes and put them in the fridge and when foraging for them to cook I missed one. When I re-discovered it again, I found it was sprouting so …

What to do Percy? What to do?

Well... plant it of course!

So I did.

I looked up descriptions on the Internet on how to plant them and found they are quite commonly planted and also make a nice kitchen house plant.

Similar to other larger plants like avocado seeds, the sweet potatoes needed to be suspended in water. Being short of materials needed for recommended “how to”, I devised my own method using rubber bands, some plastic knives and 4 inch plastic kitchen storage containers.

I cut the sprouted potato into two pieces. I wrapped a rubber band around the wide base of each piece. I wrapped a rubber band around the lip of the storage container. Then I slip looped 3 rubber bands under the band on the sweet potato anchoring them. Next I ran the open end under the band on the storage container. I used a plastic knife slipped into the open band to hold it in place. By adjusting the location of the 3 bands I was able to get the potato centered and in just the right amount of water.

Sweet Potato held by Rubber Bands

Sweet Potato held by Rubber Bands

I do think it was rather clever method of suspending the potatoes.



Sweet Potato Slips

One of the interesting aspects about growing them is that the mother potato produces shoots called “slips”. You let these slips grow to 4 or 5 inches and then cut them off and place them in water to grow their own roots. I was surprised at how fast they root, the next day I had visible roots and within 3 days they really needed to be “in the dirt”.

The slips have very interesting leaves and an unusual coloring. I have planted a bunch of slips and had more to giveaway to a friend for their garden. With some luck, I will soon have sweet potatoes and regular potatoes to "eat 'em right straight up"!


The Potato Report – over and out for now.

Planted Sweet Potatoes