RE: Red Amaryllis - Day 247 - Haiku - My Entry for the “Natural Medicine Love it Up” Contest
The red amaryllis are pretty.
Have been getting the hang of sweet potatoes and last season would have been great if not for whatever burrowing critters ate most of them before I could. Suspect it was mostly mice, after digging up quite a few nests with the roots and stomping quite a few to death.
The secret is remembering they're tropical tubers and can't go in the ground before the soil temp reaches at least 55F. Also make sure the variety is appropriate for your growing season length.
They sprout slips better warm when about 80F. 1 April here in NE Oklahoma I start my slips on a heat mat using the old 3 toothpicks and a mason jar method with a insulating wrap around the jars and tissue stuffed in between to hold in as much heat as possible. The water will go bad quicker than you expect and be sure to keep it changed out often enough. After the slips get to about 10-inches I break them off and lay them in a pan of water (no heat mat) with only the top few leaves out of the water. Then you'll see a bunch of roots start all along the submerged portion of the slip. Again, make sure the water doesn't go bad.
After you get a lot of roots established at least a couple of inches long they're ready to go in the ground with just a couple of leaves exposed, if the soil is warm enough. They like very loose or sandy soil and work great in my deep mulch garden which allows me to dig them up with my hands alone.
Like all root crops, you don't want to give them a bunch of nitrogen which makes a lot of leaves and not as much root. Make sure the soil doesn't dry out and isn't wet for a long time.
The best part while waiting for fall harvest is that sweet potato leaves are tasty, nutritious and there are a bunch of them. They're great raw on salads and also cooked like you would spinach or chard.
Leave the roots in the ground until the soil temp drops to 60F and then its time to pull them. Let them sit out to air dry a few days and then just lightly brush off the loose dirt (don't wash). Store in a dark closet at about 65-70F and they keep really well.
Hope this helps.
The mice or voles will be less of an issue if you plant onions, garlic, chives or other alliums around the perimeter. French marigolds help as well.
Yes, sweet potato greens are awesome, and I've written about them before. I didn't realize they were edible until a few years ago, but now we enjoy them regularly, and I feed a fair amount to my animals as well.
I've been gardening organically for 30+ years, and sweet potatoes have frequently been a part of the mix. The only difference this time is that these are purple sweet potatoes, which I've been wanting to try for years. I've previously grown mostly Beauregard, which is an heirloom orange variety.
Thanks so much for your comment - I have no doubt it will help a lot if our less experienced growers, and I appreciate the time and effort you took to make it.
Hope you had an awesome Groundhog Day! ;-)
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Thanks for the pointers to keep the mice or voles out. I grow Japanese Red which have red/purple skin and light yellow to white flesh. They are soooo sweet that all I put on them is butter. They can be cooked any way you prefer. After ponderig the reply above, I think I'll post it on my steemit blog. Cheers.
Yeah, that's usually how I eat the Beauregards too, with just butter. Great variety. Now I'll have to try out the Japanese Red!
Gopher spurge is another plant that keeps out burrowing rodents, and does so over a wider area, but I usually stick with the alliums since I use a ton of them in my cooking.
I've also read that if you ring your fruit trees with chives, as the outer border of your mulch ring, they'll actually prevent grass and other weeds from invading the ring with their runners. Best of all, they're perennial, so they'll protect the borders for years.
I haven't done that yet, but that's part of my plan for this season, and if it works as advertised I'll definitely write about it, so that other gardeners can benefit as well. And, since we have lots of fruit trees to ring, I'll have plenty of chives and garlic chives to freeze, to dry, and to sell the extras. Win/win/win. ;-)
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