Time to get growing one of the easiest super foods ever... Sweet Potatoes! (Ipomoea batatas)
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The time to get started is right now in the middle of the winter. Yup. Right now is the time to start growing your slips to plant when the weather warms up.
This video will walk you through how to grow sweet potatoes from starting the slips yourself from a store bought potato all of the way to a bountiful harvest. This video shows that even in a container sweet potatoes are easy to grow and very productive.
Are Sweet Potatoes and Yams the same thing? Yes... and no.
Real YAMS (Dioscorea alata) are native to Africa and parts of Asia. They are a starchy tuber (not particularly sweet) with a bumpy, tough, bark like skin. They taste a lot closer to a russet potato than a sweet potato. However because they are both long edible tubers, the name yam was used by some people interchangeably for both species.
True SWEET POTATOES can come in several varieties and colors including white, purple and the commonly seen orange. They are highly nutritious and considered one of the super foods, providing 769 % of your daily recommended Vitamin A: and 4 grams of protein in a single cooked cup! They are also a great source of Vitamin C, Manganese, Vitamin B6, Potassium, Copper and Niacin, as well as a great source of antioxidants!
They provide a huge bang for the buck as far as garden space because - unlike the standard Irish potato (which all parts EXCEPT for the tuber are highly poisonous) - the leaves and stems of the SWEET potato are EDIBLE as well as the tuber. Sweet Potato leaves are sometimes called "camote tops" and often used in Asian and Central American dishes.
The biggest secret to success in growing sweet potatoes? Heat and moisture. Sweet potatoes are a tropical plant. They love it hot. If you live where it is hot, sweet potatoes can be grown year round as a perennial.
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