This Sunday morning, I decided to start sweet potato slips. I cut two sweet potatoes in half and stuck three toothpicks in each half in order to suspend them over a glass or jar of water. They are in the kitchen window so I will not forget to add water each day to keep the cut end under water.
I've never done this before. When the slips form, they will be planted in containers, so I need to round up the five-gallon buckets. I won't wash them until they day before I use them.
Last December, rather late for me, I went to the sweet potato farm and only purchased forty-pounds of sweet potatoes--one box. Remember, one year I bought 160 pounds and did not have too many and had little waste. Well, this past year, they were starting to go bad the day I brought them home. I think only four were ever baked, maybe six. The rest were soon tossed.
The other day, I found a canvas bag with about eight sweet potatoes. Today, I used two and tossed the rest, all rotten in the bag. One was stuck to the bag, so I will have to soak it outdoors before washing it. Gross! That would have been smelly in a bit as the weather warms.
I just wish I knew how to post pictures using paint.net. This week is the week I learn.
My aunt, Nell, had a sweet potato vine in her kitchen that covered most of a wall. It must have been twenty-feet long. We were not allowed near it for fear one of us would break it. I was about eleven the last time I saw it as we moved away. She even managed to move it successfully to another house without breaking the plant vines.
Nell did not want us to call her "Aunt Nell," so she is the only aunt that did not have the title before her name. It seemed normal when I was very small, but then I wondered about it by the time I went to school. She was my mother's only sister.
Dominique is out there, CROWING! She is not very good at it and not very loud or she would have to go.
Your turn
Have you ever grown your own slips to grow sweet potatoes? Or, did you purchase them? Has anyone ever grown a sweet potato vine in the kitchen? Nell grew hers in the dining room. Did you have a relative that did not want a title in front of the first name?
I have only had sweet potato vines in the kitchen, never to try and grow any actual potatoes. I do have some pineapple tops rooted to plant though. They may or may not grow but I am giving it a shot anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnne,
ReplyDeleteHopefully, your pineapple tops will take and in two years you will get a pineapple. Thanks.
Back when I was a full-time gardener I discovered homegrown sweet potatoes were not much different than thems bought in th store. So I stopped growing them.
ReplyDeleteurspo,
ReplyDeleteI never knew you were a full-time gardener. I buy from the farm, so I hope these are as good. This will bypass the "poisoning the crop" stage. It will be very self-satisfying. Besides, I know the variety I want to eat. In the store the produce people searched for the boxes and could only find the producer, not the variety. I may stop growing them, too. If the slips don't form, I may just never grow sweet potatoes!