Growing sweet potatoes is child’s play! In this article, we tell you all about this ultra-productive vegetable! Origins, cultivation, harvests – we tell you everything about this vegetable, ideal for permaculture and/or living soil gardens .
Grown in the right conditions, a sweet potato plant can produce 10KG!
Botany:
Called potato (Ipoméa Batatas) because of its tubers, the potato is not in the same family as the potato (which is a solanaceae). It’s an ipomoea, like the flower that decorates our balconies. The sweet potato is a cultigena plant selected by man that doesnot exist in the wild.
Origin of the sweet potato:
Found throughout the Pacific Rim, it has been cultivated for nearly 6000 years. Appelée « Kumara in Tahitian, « Batata in Arawak and « Kamate in Tagalog and cultivated for millennia, genetic analysis genetic analysis The sweet potato is one of the most recent discoveries to unravel the mystery of its origins. The sweet potato originated in Peru and would have followed the migrations of human beings.
Growing sweet potatoes:
Start sweet potato cultivation:
To start growing sweet potatoes, we generally start with a tuber that we germinate in water and place in the sun.
Caution! Buy potatoes as locally as possible. Potatoes from far away are usually treated with antigerminants, which greatly delays the sprouting time of your tubers.
Multiply sweet potatoes:
The sweet potato is a plant that tolerates cuttings very well. cuttings. En coupant quelques tronçons de 10 cm de tiges, vous pouvez faire autant de boutures que nécessaires. Vous avez juste à couper la liane, la placer dans un ver d’eau. Attendre 15 jours, et le tour est joué! Vous avez multiplier vos plants!
Sweet potato vine cuttings
Planting sweet potatoes in the garden:
The sweet potato is a tropical vegetable. The plant does not tolerate cold temperatures. We advise you to wait until mid-May to plant them.
To grow well, the sweet potato needs rich soil and deep. The warmer the soil, the quicker the start-up. If your soil is not the most fertile, we advise you to place a bucket of compost per plant at planting time.
Combining sweet potatoes in permaculture:
The sweet potato is a multi-purpose plant ideal for permaculture vegetable gardens ! Its long vines (up to 10m long!) make an excellent ground covera kind of living living mulch that protects the soil from the sun’s aggressions (and limits soil evaporation, so saving a little water).
We usually plant the sweet potatoes at the end of the tomato row. This way, the vines act as a mulch for the tomatoes.
Be sure to leave enough room for the tubers to grow (50 to 70 cm from the tomatoes).
You can also use lianas to provide shade by climbing them on supports (such as pergolas).
On the left, a decorative sweet potato plant that provides shade.
Harvesting sweet potatoes:
Sweet potatoes are a long crop ! Tubers only start to grow when the plant is in flower. Here in Switzerland, harvesting generally takes place between October and November (before the first hard frost). Wait until the foliage begins to dry before harvesting the tubers.
If cultivation is well managed, you can produce close to 10Kg per plant! By planting relatively dry (4 plants per m2), you can aim for 40Kg production per m2! One of the most productive vegetables in the garden.
Summary sheet on growing sweet potatoes:
Sweet potato cultivation under tarpaulin + green waste shredding
To read our other articles about the vegetable garden
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