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Post by macmex on Feb 1, 2014 18:22:26 GMT -6
It's early. But I'm starting sweet potatoes now. Here's a picture of my setup before I covered them with potting medium.
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Post by duckcreekfarms on Feb 2, 2014 19:55:01 GMT -6
It's way too early for me to think about trying to bed sweets now. I usualy start sometime in March.
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Post by macmex on Feb 3, 2014 4:14:11 GMT -6
There may well be wisdom in that Gary. I'm struggling to keep them warm. Will have to jury rig something to reduce the airspace which needs heating. Fortunately, the heating cables are functioning.
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Post by macmex on May 12, 2014 8:42:19 GMT -6
The sweet potato slip production experiment has gone well. Yesterday I started planting my own. I would like to mention to those who live in my climate, that I have planted as late as July 18, and still gotten a usable crop of sweet potatoes. I'm planting under plastic, with drip irrigation. Last year was the first time I tried this, and the results were quite good. Here's a picture of a technique I sometimes use. When a slip get's real long, but doesn't have enough leaves to be broken into two slips, I will sometimes plant one end in one spot and "walk" the other end over to the next, sticking it in the soil there. Both ends will root and produce a crop! This one had enough leaves to split. But it was easier to do this way.
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Post by macmex on May 24, 2014 6:06:20 GMT -6
Just want to mention something, which it occurred to me, some folk probably don't know. Here, in NE Oklahoma, I've planted sweet potato slips as late as July 18 and received a usable harvest. Sweet potatoes do their greatest growth when it's very warm.
Also, I'd love input on this; but my observation has been that slips (with or without roots) do better than plants with roots. Why? I don't know!
George
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Post by duckcreekfarms on Jun 2, 2014 18:22:48 GMT -6
Preach It Brother George. I planted until about July 15th last year and most of the early ones had a great crop of impressive size roots. a couple the the longer season ones made a good number of roots, but didn't quit size up as much as I would have liked, however, I didn't have water which might have made a difference. I get so tied of people from up North wanting to plant before the soil get a steady 60's degree range. I got a an order from a Seed Saver in MA then a couple of weeks ago I got a note in the mail wanting to know where her sweetpotatos were....Ok I sent them ....... today I got another note in the mail telling me that it got so cold one night she may have lost some of them.......
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Post by macmex on Aug 26, 2014 9:04:40 GMT -6
It's late August now, and in perspective, I would say that I would definitely start my slips a month later than this year. Sweet potatoes need HEAT, and our porch was too cold. Also, once they receive heat they grow like wild fire. I'm away for a day or two more, yet, but I need to take a picture of my sweet potatoes, which were planted in that red plastic mulch. One can no longer even see that mulch. They have covered everything!
I could probably dig some roots now. But I always like to wait until nights begin to cool (and their growth slows down considerably). Right now they are growing faster than weeds and, no doubt, putting on lots of roots.
This has been a fantastic summer for our garden. Though it was a little cool, at the start, by sweet potato standards, we have received wonderful amounts of rain. It is plenty hot for production. We should get a really good crop!
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Post by glen on Jan 14, 2015 9:41:36 GMT -6
Macmex, I love your slip starter setup. I am a sweet potato fan. Why? Because it will grow where I live and produce food in insanely hellish conditions. I am a beginner sweet potato Gardener. They call em batatta's where I live. No one grows them here that I have seen and I rarely if ever see them for sale and when I do the quality is terrible. At any rate I am interested in anything your post concerning this valueable crop. My intention is to have okra and sweet potato's growing together in the same unruly área. I started my sweet potato garden with a single small sweet potato that I found in a grocery store about 30 miles away. Variety is unknown. I cut it into 3 peices and planted them in small pots. This was about a year and a half ago. When I moved into my new cottage I planted 2 of them in the ground. I cut slips and planted more. Waited. Planted more slips etc until now I have about 500 square feet of vines. For awhile there was a lot more than that. I have harvested sweet potato's 3 or 4 times in the past 8 months, replanting immediately with the existing slips in the garden. When I want sweet potatos I have to just search around to try and find plants that are ready to eat. I still got a big patch going in the yard but I do not know how well they will do this time of year since this is my first try growing spuds for a full year. At any rate I intend at the very least to keep what I have in the ground alive until they do start producing. Sometimes I have pest problems. Borers etc. Sometimes the potato's are perfect. Sometimes they are extremely huge. I have White potato's as well but not as much and I don't prefer them. They are not sweet and they are dry. I also have volunteers coming up all over the garden as well. I have no idea what I am doing but fortuneately for me, sweet potato's are very forgiving.
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Post by glen on Jan 14, 2015 9:44:59 GMT -6
Oh, by the way, when I say I have White potato's, they are the White sweet potato's. They have purple skin and are White inside. They are not nearly as productive as the normal orange sweet potato's. They get very big though. And, they are dry and not sweet. I have no idea what variety's I have except for the colors.
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Post by macmex on Jan 14, 2015 14:32:34 GMT -6
Glen, it seems that the whole Pacific rim has a predominance of purple skinned, white fleshed sweet potatoes. When we lived in Mexico, the main sweet potato there was purple skinned and white fleshed. As is typical, the Mexicans dubbed it "El Morado" "The purple one". But it outproduced every other kind I ever found down there. I even carried in some commercial roots, from the USA, and, though they did alright, el morado out produced them by a far shot. My guess is that your sweet potato is very very similar to "el morado," but your conditions are taken better by the orange variety you have.
Interestingly, I actually saw a "morado" mutate and produce an orange sweet potato, in Hidalgo Mexico. I planted a slip for "morado" and got an orange version, which also produced quite well. It was amazing.
You will likely face a challenge which is not nearly as bad up here in the North: weevils, or borers. When grown in the same ground for an extended amount of time, it is possible to build up a population of these pests. They bore holes in the roots, rendering them ugly and causing them to spoil. The solution is to move your patch each year.
You are definitely on the right track with sweet potatoes. I don't know any other plant which produces so much nutrition, so reliably, and in such quantity, in a warm climate. They ARE very forgiving too! When it's too hot, or in some cases, when it gets too cool (like in the Mexican highlands), they can sit there and pick up growing again, when conditions are right.
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Post by glen on Jan 14, 2015 18:42:02 GMT -6
George, you are right, I think the sweet potato's are the most valuable crop in my garden. I don't care too much for the White sweet potato's but this is just a personal preferance. I will not be able to rotate the garden like I would like to due to the fact that I have only 500 meters. If I can get the neighbors to let me plant in their back yard I would do so. I have the wáter. They don't. That deal might happen down the road. My barrio only has community well wáter and the rules don't allow wáter use outdoors. That means no veggy gardens here. I invested in a well but the neighbors can't afford one. I have neighbors interested in sweet potato's and I have been advising them not to plant until May during the rainy season. I believe that they will do Ok here with almost no irrigation except the rain during that time. I will have lots of slips to share with anyone who is interested. I mean plenty. And, they are very hard to come by in my área. Oh, Maty was out walking in the neighborhood yesterday and found some old dead okra plants in the Hood. She talked to the owner. They don't eat the okra. They only dry the pods and roast them to grind for making coffee. I haven't found anyone yet that actually eats okra here.
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Post by macmex on Jan 18, 2015 16:55:43 GMT -6
Glen, isn't it interesting to find cultural "blind spots?" People where you are don't consider okra to be food. So, even when it is right under their noses, they don't eat it. Yet Panamanians aren't the only ones who do this. I believe everyone does! Hence, we need to learn from one another.
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Post by glen on Jan 19, 2015 8:19:16 GMT -6
George, you are right, we all do this. I have the same problema. The people here eat boiled Green plantains everyday. It is the most important food crop. I just can't wrap my hands around that. Nor do I eat the Brown or black nyam or the yucca either. Those are the common locally grown starches that are consumed. Green veggy's are not on the menú! Yuck. And, of course, the guando. I can eat it but I certainly don't look forward to it. They also consume many fruits that I cannot adjust to either. Such as the Wax Jambu, or star fruit or a host of other strange fruits. So the fact that they will not eat okra shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
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Post by macmex on Jan 19, 2015 12:43:32 GMT -6
LOL! I remember, when we first moved to a town in the hills North of Puebla, the party food, for ALL special occasions was meat bathed in a hot sauce called "mole," pronounced "mole-aye." First time I ate some my host about died laughing, as it shut my voice box down. I really didn't like it. But, two years later, I was outside one day and a neighbor was making mole. I smelled it, and... it made me really hungry! I had learned to like it and still do. The hard part is to get people to give something enough of a try to learn to like it.
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Post by glen on Jan 20, 2015 8:08:34 GMT -6
Your are absolutely right. I still miss eating kimche every day like I did when I lived in S Korea more tan 15 years ago. I haven't eaten it in many years.
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