Sweet Potato Dreaming

 

Over 40 years ago, I left home for the first time and lived in a tiny one room walk up apartment. It was cramped and dreary. My mother showed me a inexpensive way to have green house plants to brighten up my kitchenette.  Little did I know that fast forward into the FUTURE (that's where I live now, .you may call it the present) and I would be still making sweet potato houseplants! Only now I call them "Slips" and as soon as the weather is warm and their roots are developed I send them out into my organic raised beds to live for the summer. Come early fall, I get to reap the harvest of the best tasting most nutritious food I know. Not only do they store well, lasting  into the next harvest, they provide the base materials for starting all over again!

We have kept this same variety alive for several
years, but this has definitely been the best season.

One Half of 2010 Harvest

We made pies, desserts, breads, rolls, main dishes and many casseroles. Usually by late winter  we have to stop eating and save a few to make plants for the coming spring. Ah...but this year we are rich in the way of the potato!

We had such a bumper crop last season that we still have a bushel of sweet potatoes. A few have started to have tiny little sprouts. Those are the ones I want to restart my garden. It is such a simple procedure, I am surprised that I ever bought sweet potato slips.
 
 As I got out the jars, it occurred to me that I was preparing to make many more starts than I could ever use.  I decided to do just that. The extras will be nice gifts to friends and neighbors and if I have the timing right, will be my first item to sell at our Farmer's Market !

The time to start the slips is 30 - 40 days before the last spring frost. Where I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains that would be about now.


Here are the directions to get you started:

All you have to do is fill a glass jar with water, cut off the ends of a nice healthy sweet potato (one from the grocery store will do fine). Stick in a few toothpicks to help it balance. Keep the bottom of the potato covered with water.

When the plants are about 4 inches tall and there has been a week or two of frost free weather, it is time to prepare the slips for planting.  One potato at a time, gently twist off the shoots, rinse out the jar and emerge the bottom half of the plants in fresh water.  They will be ready to plant in a few days when the roots are inch or two long. The left over piece of potato and old roots can be cooked up for dog food or go into the compost!

Don't worry about the garden plot yet, because you still have a month to get it ready, and if you don't have a garden, a container will work just fine, and even left to grow in the jar, you may be surprise to learn that the leaves can be prepared and eaten just like other greens!  So let's get GROWING!