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#1
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sweet potato
Hello,
I bought the pack of sweet potato slips from T&M. The instructions say you harvest any time between the end of September and end of October, so that they are lifted before the frosts. Sadly I haven't had much success. I wondered how everyone else did? Two died pretty soon after planting; the other eight grew, but not to the extent the leaflet suggested they would. The leaflet spoke of trailing foliage and flowers. I didn't see any flowers and the foliage whilst tit has grown, it hasn't gone crazy. It was planted in well draining soil with rotted compost, as advised, so I am at a loss what went wrong. The sweet potatoes are the size of a pod of peas; far too tiny to eat! Did I do something wrong or has this just been a bad year for them? How did everyone else do? Thanks, Stephen. |
#2
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sweet potato
In article ,
Stephen wrote: I bought the pack of sweet potato slips from T&M. ... You've been had. The sweet potatoes are the size of a pod of peas; far too tiny to eat! Did I do something wrong or has this just been a bad year for them? How did everyone else do? They're true tropical plants. With CONSIDERABLE care, and growing them under protection, some people have got a crop. Otherwise, don't bother. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
#3
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sweet potato
wrote in message ... In article , Stephen wrote: I bought the pack of sweet potato slips from T&M. ... You've been had. The sweet potatoes are the size of a pod of peas; far too tiny to eat! Did I do something wrong or has this just been a bad year for them? How did everyone else do? They're true tropical plants. With CONSIDERABLE care, and growing them under protection, some people have got a crop. Otherwise, don't bother. What Nick said. We grew them once since we were given a couple of slips, but we're very close to the south coast, and it was a hot summer that year. Even so, we only got two big ones and half a dozen tiddlers. Steve |
#4
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sweet potato
"shazzbat" wrote ... wrote ... Stephen wrote: I bought the pack of sweet potato slips from T&M. ... You've been had. The sweet potatoes are the size of a pod of peas; far too tiny to eat! Did I do something wrong or has this just been a bad year for them? How did everyone else do? They're true tropical plants. With CONSIDERABLE care, and growing them under protection, some people have got a crop. Otherwise, don't bother. What Nick said. We grew them once since we were given a couple of slips, but we're very close to the south coast, and it was a hot summer that year. Even so, we only got two big ones and half a dozen tiddlers. I also agree with Nick. We tried for a few years and never got a worthwhile crop, those that did grow had slug holes all over them anyway. We even tried using our own tubers to make slips very early for the next season, an easy process BTW, and potted them up in our heated greenhouse until time to plant out yet they too didn't produce any worthwhile crop. Lots of foliage such that other plot holders thought I was growing convolvulus from Hell, it ran everywhere, but nothing to eat. I think a heated greenhouse to start them off early, and a large Polytunnel for growing are needed, at least in the UK. -- Regards Bob Hobden W.of London. UK |
#5
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sweet potato
On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 16:03:09 +0100, "Bob Hobden"
wrote: We even tried using our own tubers to make slips very early for the next season, an easy process BTW, Please could you tell me more about this? I'm sure the T&M literature said you could not grow your own from tubers and that they did some magic to make the slips they sold. |
#6
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sweet potato
Stephen wrote:
Please could you tell me more about this? I'm sure the T&M literature said you could not grow your own from tubers and that they did some magic to make the slips they sold. Yeah, I believed that too, but Nick got ours to grow. But the ones we grew weren't as good as the ones we bought. Iirc, it just involved keeping them cool and dark, but I'm sure someone else will be able to correct me. |
#7
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sweet potato
Stephen wrote:
On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 16:03:09 +0100, "Bob Hobden" wrote: We even tried using our own tubers to make slips very early for the next season, an easy process BTW, Please could you tell me more about this? I'm sure the T&M literature said you could not grow your own from tubers and that they did some magic to make the slips they sold. That's absolute balderdash, and IMO, a cynically deliberate untruth. You can cut out the 'eyes' with a goodly chunk of flesh and skin, and if kept warm and moist, and with a small dose of fungicide in the compost, every one should shoot and grow. If kept in a planter in a greenhouse, you might get a crop the first year. I have one such planter and several sprouting slips, and my neighbour has the rest of the slips... -- Rusty |
#8
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Quote:
So we aren't too many hundred of miles north of good growing areas. But basically the problem in Britain is that the growing season normally just isn't warm for long enough for outdoor growing to have much chance of success. Better chance in a greenhouse. The history of the plants is very interesting. They were cultivated from about 2500BC in central and southern America, and from about 700-1000AD in the Pacific Islands, including New Zealand. It was also grown in highland New Guinea before European contact, though possibly from more recent times. But the Philippines knew it not before European contact. The name for them is more or less the same - kumara or some variant - in Quechua (main Peruvian language), Nahuatl (main Mexican language) and Polynesian languages (including Maori), who all cultivated it before European contact. So there is some quite strong indication of Polynesian - South American contact. Although there is some very rare native sweet potato in Polynesia, it is not the same species as South America, and the Polynesians cultivated the South American version, via cuttings. The Maori trained seagulls to pick bugs off the leaves, would you believe it. |
#10
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sweet potato
someone wrote:
"echinosum" wrote in message ... [...] The history of the plants is very interesting. They were cultivated from about 2500BC in central and southern America, and from about 700-1000AD in the Pacific Islands, including New Zealand. It was also grown in highland New Guinea before European contact, though possibly from more recent times. But the Philippines knew it not before European contact. The name for them is more or less the same - kumara or some variant - in Quechua (main Peruvian language), Nahuatl (main Mexican language) and Polynesian languages (including Maori), who all cultivated it before European contact. So there is some quite strong indication of Polynesian - South American contact. Although there is some very rare native sweet potato in Polynesia, it is not the same species as South America, and the Polynesians cultivated the South American version, via cuttings. The Maori trained seagulls to pick bugs off the leaves, would you believe it. What a fascinating post! Thank you for the information. Yes, indeed! We found kumaras for sale in South Island, N.Z. in a supermarket. They had a dark purple skin and white flesh, not at all like what we get here. I think they were like sweet potatoes, not yams. Seems to me there are a) sweet potatoes (brown skin, white flesh) and b) yams, brown or purple skin, orange flesh). One is called a yam, the other is a sweet potato. In Canada, the yam is the orange-fleshed one, grown in the U.S. We don't have the white dry one except in Caribbean food shops. In general British usage, only the big things originating (I assume) in Africa are called "yams". [...] -- Mike. |
#11
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sweet potato
Mike Lyle wrote:
In general British usage, only the big things originating (I assume) in Africa are called "yams". In my local friendly Asian foodshop they tell me that 'yam' just means 'root'. -- Rusty |
#12
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sweet potato
In article ,
someone wrote: Seems to me there are a) sweet potatoes (brown skin, white flesh) and b) yams, brown or purple skin, orange flesh). One is called a yam, the other is a sweet potato. In Canada, the yam is the orange-fleshed one, grown in the U.S. We don't have the white dry one except in Caribbean food shops. The term "yam" can be used in a strict sense to refer to Dioscorea batatas, but (I believe) more often means just "edible root" in the areas they are grown. In places where they aren't, it can mean almost anything. I have no idea if the two forms are varieties or subspecies. The white-fleshed ones are very dry and starchy, and not terribly tasty. They're used as a carbohydrate staple in the Caribbean. The orange-fleshed ones are more watery and tasty and cook up a treat when baked with butter & brown sugar. More like winter squashes. On the contrary. The white-fleshed ones are delicious, and much like huge chestnuts to eat :-) The orange-fleshed ones are slimy and sickly, like a butternut squash on steroids. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
#13
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sweet potato
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#14
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sweet potato
wrote in message ... In article , someone wrote: Seems to me there are a) sweet potatoes (brown skin, white flesh) and b) yams, brown or purple skin, orange flesh). One is called a yam, the other is a sweet potato. In Canada, the yam is the orange-fleshed one, grown in the U.S. We don't have the white dry one except in Caribbean food shops. The term "yam" can be used in a strict sense to refer to Dioscorea batatas, but (I believe) more often means just "edible root" in the areas they are grown. In places where they aren't, it can mean almost anything. I have no idea if the two forms are varieties or subspecies. The white-fleshed ones are very dry and starchy, and not terribly tasty. They're used as a carbohydrate staple in the Caribbean. The orange-fleshed ones are more watery and tasty and cook up a treat when baked with butter & brown sugar. More like winter squashes. On the contrary. The white-fleshed ones are delicious, and much like huge chestnuts to eat :-) The orange-fleshed ones are slimy and sickly, like a butternut squash on steroids. Chestnuts - yuk! Makes my mouth all dry just thinking about them. This just proves that one man's Mead is another man's Persian :-) someone |
#15
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Quote:
Hawaiian poi is not sweet potato, it is taro, Colocasia esculenta, an aroid. Eddoes are a variety of taro, which you wouldn't guess at first glance. There are other aroids with edible roots. The standard tropical yam we think of as growing in the tropics, long roots with a brown fibrous covering, are various Dioscorea species. However it shouldn't be confused with the similar looking long brown fibrous cassava roots, Manihot esculenta, which is quite different biologically, a euphorbia. So that is four different orders of plant I have mentioned. The Antillean/Bahaman natives known as Taino called sweet potato "batata" - Columbus ate it under that name. Sweet potato is still called batata in Spanish. Standard potatoes were called papas in Quechua (the main Andean language), and that word is often used in Spanish of that region. The more standard spanish patata, leading to potato, is mix-up between papa and batata. |
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