Sprouting Sweet Potatoes

20191007_171112.jpg

Here's a new experiment:

Sprouting locally-grown garnet sweet potatoes in jam jars, and planting them!

20191009_181153.jpg

These sweet potatoes sat in Mason jars for about a month, unfurling lush foliage and vigorous root growth. I planted two of them whole into the bins vacated by the White Kennebec 'taters.

20191009_182308.jpg Sweet potato start in large bin.

As you can see, I mulched the top of this bin heavily with rabbit litter. For the small bin, I filled the bottom up with more rabbit litter, topped with about 6 inches of potting soil. On top of both went more rabbit litter.

20191009_181855.jpg

20191009_182304.jpg

Regular potatoes, "sweet potatoes", and "true yams", are three radically different botanical families.

Regular potatoes of all colors are in the Nightshade family along with tomatoes and peppers.

True Yams are a tuber unto themselves, growing up to 150 pounds per tuber and used as a valuable token in some Islander economies

"Sweet Potatoes" like the ones I show here, familiar in Thanksgiving casseroles with marshmallows on top, belong to the Morning Glory family.

They are supposed to develop nice, tentacle-looking tuber production just under the soil over the course of their 3-5 year lifespan.

At the same time, unlike potatoes of the Nightshade family, you can eat the leafy foliage of Sweet Potatoes like spinach pot-herbs, as a fresh or cooked green. So diverse!

Wish me luck with this experiment to see how well I can grow Sweet Potatoes on my suburban farm. Thanks so much and cheers.

Love,cat
@creationofcare

Socalsteemitbanner2.jpg

#SoCalSteemit is building and supporting the Steemit community of Southern California. If you are from SoCal and are into creating quality content here on Steemit, we'd love for you to follow us @SoCalSteemit and join our group on Discord!

Sort:  

Are the common yams sold in grocery stores, and the canned yams, are these both true yams, or what category are they?

Those are "sweet potatoes", actually cousins of the morning glory like these. If yours haven't been treated, they, too, will sprout and you can propagate them!

I wonder how about the result of harvesting.

Me too! I've watched a bunch of yt videos on the subject, and most people say they grow quite rampantly. I am going to plant the third in the ground somewhere to compare harvests.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.28
TRX 0.22
JST 0.040
BTC 95329.80
ETH 3618.16
SBD 3.87