Summer Garden Update: Sweet Potato raised beds
Once the soil warmed up these vines really took off. I planted them back in early spring and did not see much growth from them. Until we started getting consistently warm days. Now every few days I am finding vine runners that I have to route back into the raised beds.
This is the first time I have grown them on a two level raised bed garden setup. Using some welded wire I gave them a second support to grow even more vines onto. So there are two canopies on this raised bed. The second bed does not have the canopy, but thats fine. They are not growing as fast as the first bed.
Maybe that is because I used sliced spuds in the first larger bed, and the second bed is all slips. There is certainly a noticeable difference between the two. I am hoping next year I can grow the slips larger and maybe they will keep up with the cut up spuds performance.
I will let these spuds keep growing until the frosts come around in a few months. Or wait for the leaves to turn yellow, usually a sign they are done for the year. At that point I will peel back the welded wire and go digging in the mulch to see if spuds are in there.
This year I have been munching on the Sweet Potato leaves, I did not know you could eat them until a follower told me they are edible. Both raised beds have been producing flowers for the last few weeks. We have gotten dozens of flowers, really surprised we got so many. Seeing those flowers reminds me this plant is part of the nightshade family. A deep purple bell shaped flower, the Bees really like them and I find them buzzing around in the thick patch of Sweet Potato vines all the time.
I expect these plants to still be around for upcoming fall update, though if I harvest early maybe that will be the actual update. Otherwise the winter update will include the yields of the spuds in the hard wood chips.
These beds have really been holding up well, I put them in the ground with used wood about five years ago. First time having raised beds for my plants, and using mulch inside for soil seems to be working well for the Sweet Potatoes.
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So if the potato leaves begins to turn yellow then it means it's beginning to mature for harvest right?
Wait the potato leaves are edible? Wow this is the first time I'm hearing it. Do you like need to cook it too? Or munch it raw?
Yeah usually the yellowing of leaves means the plant is done growing and so will the spuds underground. If the frosts come first I just pull them out so they dont get frozen. But usually the yellowing of the leaves happen right around that time.
Yep @cryptopie taught me that, I did not know you could eat raw Sweet Potato leaves. You can saute them but I like to eat them right off the plant. It tastes like salad greens to me.
Hahaha that's a new one. I didn't even know, I'll probably check out potatoes if I get to my village and Maybe I'll try cooking it as well.
Just remember only Sweet Potato leaves can be eaten as far as I know. If you ate white, yellow or red Potato leaves they can make you sick.
Sweet Potatoes are in a different family than other Potatoes.
I hope that you can harvest big spuds and young greens before the winter time @solominer. Also you can just plant sections of the vines so you would not need to plant the spuds themselves.
They like a full sun and lot of watering and wants to creep and produce many leaves.
I made my mother to order some greens for me, I have been wanting some because it is really delicious eaten with some dipping sauce @solominer :P
By planting in sections that's the idea of using the slips. But this year I did not grow them big enough I think. I need to grow them a few feet long.
Nice.. I need to try out some sweet potato greens with some rice and sauce.
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