How To Grow Sweet Potatoes At Home
From my childhood sweet potatoes is one of my favorite food. It is easy to eat and very sweet also. It have different kinds of health benefits. Immunity power of your body can increased easily after using it. Cancer, Vision related problem can overcome after using the sweet potato. Brain power can boost after using the sweet potato.
Different kinds of beneficial vitamins and minerals available inside the sweet potato. Vitamin B, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Magnesium, Iron, Potassium and many more types of minerals are available inside the sweet potato. So you can also use sweet potato and take those benefits from it.
Sweet potatoes looks like the ground cover also. You can plant sweet potato in any kinds of fertile land. I am sure it will give you the different types of flavor for you. Its leaves also edible like the spinach. But I don’t like the flavor of its leaves.
Many kinds of food items also can be prepared using the sweet potatoes. Crackers made by sweet potatoes is very famous food item in USA. So if you are also planning to take different types of benefits after reading this article.
You will know all the details about the sweet potatoes in this article. Just you have to read this article until the last. After reading this article you will be also able to Grow Sweet Potatoes at home.
Overview
It is also known as Ipomoea balatas which is belongs to morning glory family. Many part of North America called sweet potato as ‘ Yam ‘ also. Sweet potato especially known as root vegetable.
Especially sweet potatoes are native to America but according to archaeologists it is originated to Polynesia. This amazing food is very tasty and sweet as its name. You can consume sweet potato after mashed, boiled, fried, steamed, raw and after making juice also.
Sweet potato pair perfectly with beef, lamb, seafood and with another types of meats food items. It will pair with other many types of foods items also.
There are many varieties of sweet potatoes available. Such as Beaureagard, Bush Porto Rico, Centennial, Patriot and many varieties available around to globe but especially there are two famous sweet potatoes available in Nepal. The red sweet potatoes and white color potatoes. I love both varieties of sweet potatoes.
It will grow in the sub-tropical region easily than others places. You can use the garden beds also to get amazing types of sweet potato production as your expectation. You can prepare the garden bed yourself also if you have time otherwise you can buy garden beds from amazon also.
Seedling Method
First of you have buy few sweet potatoes from local store. You can directly buy sweet potatoes from the Amazon also. After purchasing you can prepare the seeds of sweet potato easily.
You can prepare the seed using the just glass of water and toothpicks like the avocado seeds. Or you can take a small flower pot with compost and soil. And now put you all the sweet potato inside it and give some water from top.
After few days later it will start to germinate. Now it’s vine start to grow. You can leave it longer as possible to get more seeds from it. Longer vine will provide you more seeds and it will be easy to expand your sweet potatoes.
Now let’s discuss about the traditional method. You have dig land and bury all the sweet potatoes inside the soil by maintain the distance. It will germinate and after few months later the long vine with leaf will come. Vine will increase in snake shape. Vine can grow up to 10 to fifteen feet long.
Now it is easy to expand more if it is getting more longer vine. The vine of sweet potatoes can easily grow in lower cares. You can prepare the cutting of vine then you can expand it in all over the garden.
Preparation the soil for sweet potatoes
Now you can prepare the land to plant. You can dig with the mini tiller also if you are planning to transplant in large area. Otherwise you can dig using the traditional method also if you have only small area.
Mix the cow-dung compost on the soil and you can bury the anti-insects plants also inside the soil. I don’t recommend you the chemicals to kill the insects. These types of chemical is very harmful for the human body also.
Especially sweet potato will love the crumbly soil. It the soil is hard then the sweet potatoes size will be also small. So the soil should be the crumbly soil before transplanting the cutting of sweet potatoes.
Transplant method
Cut all the sweet potatoes vine from the bottom to top. You can make up to 20 piece per vine. You can prepare more cuttings of vine as per your requirements. These cuttings will produce roots easily.
Garden beds, container and large flower pot can be also used but if you are doing in small places then you can use a small types of flower pot also. Then you have to bury all the cuttings of vine inside the flower pot with vermin-compost and soil. You can put few sprinkle of waters from top and leave it. After few times it will start to spread its roots and that roots will became sweet potatoes.
If you are using separate land then you can bury all the stems inside the prepared soil. Make sure the vine of the sweet potatoes are buried properly inside the soil. The soil should be little bit moist which will help sweet potato to install earlier.
It will be little bit grow faster If the soil is moist. After two to three days later its roots will successfully installed. Then new leaves will start to come from the vine after successfully installation of sweet potatoes.
Transplant in the full sunlight area to get faster growth. Don’t transplant in the shady area. It will damage the flavor of the sweet potato and the production will not be also good as expected. More sunlight produce large size tasty sweet potatoes.
Take care method
You can manage the shades to your sweet potatoes if the weather is really hot. Otherwise sweet potatoes love the sunlight. You have to provide water at least one time per week to make moist soil which will be very beneficial for the growth of sweet potatoes.
The sweets potatoes can destroyed by the domestic animals or by the insects. Avoid to use any kinds of pesticide. To get solution of these types of disease; you can contact your government agricultural department directly or you can contact your local gardener expert also.
There may be occur different kinds of disease such as Black rot , Blue mold rot , root not , Circular Spot and many more . The Reniform, Root-knot, Stubby-root, Stunt and many more types of problems may occurred inside you sweet potatoes. You have to solve them as soon as possible.
Many farmers rotate their location every year to get solution from these kinds of problems. Changing the location also may help to overcome these types of problems.
Harvest
The leaves also edible that’s why you can harvest those leaves also. Don’t harvest all the leaves because the leaves play the major role to produce the large and tasty sweet potatoes. More leaves on vines will give more production and tasty flavor also.
After three to four month later; you can see the leaves will start to dry in the earlier winter. The leaves will change from green to yellow. It means now it’s the right time to harvest. If the foliage are still green don’t dig it. You will not get the taste and quality in the green foliage.
Now remove all the dried out vine and give it to your domestic animals. And start to dig. You will start to get all the sweet potatoes inside the soil in few feet deep. Be careful during the digging time. The sweets potatoes parts may be destroyed during the digging time. This thing will decrease the storage time of your sweet potatoes. Store them in cool and dry place. If possible you can store in the air
In this article we discuss about the sweet potatoes. If you also learn something about the sweet potatoes then share this article to among the people. It will be a huge support for me. Tell me in the comment box if you have any suggestion. I will come back with another new article. Until that time; Good bye see you again.
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