Batat (photos) planting and growing
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How to grow sweet potato and sweet potatoes in the country
New times can be praised, you can scold. But we have more opportunities. Even in such a conservative business as gardening. If 50 years ago you read, for example, in a certain book, that a certain don dipped baked sweet potato - yawned and forgotten, nowadays, with a minimum of effort, you can order a baked sweet potato for your wife for dinner. And not bought in the store, but grown in your own dacha.
Reference by topic: Cornflower - cultivation and recipes of dishes from sweet potato
What is sweet potato?
In the tropics and subtropics is known not for the first thousand years and the breeding of tubers has become so familiar that the seeds have already been forgotten (similar to our potato). And like potatoes, sweet potato has dozens of varieties, different tastes and colors of tubers. The tubers have a lot of glucose, and most varieties are sweet.
You will be surprised, but the closest cousin of sweet potato - Convolvulus externally, and on leaves, and on flowers, even the specialist does not always distinguish.
I do not pretend to the laurels of the great natural scientist, but nevertheless in due time I graduated from the Chair of Botany of Leningrad State University. When the first time saw sweet potatoes from friends at the dacha - did not recognize: the convolvulus convolvulus, flowers gramophones, only planted strangely - creeps along low arches over the garden.
His story is interesting because, according to the origin of the South American, he somehow got to Africa in the pre-Columbian era and assimilated there so firmly that some consider him the homeland of the Black Continent.
In the homeland, sweet potato is a perennial liana. It is quite long, up to 5 m. It can climb along the supports, but prefers to crawl and start additional roots. It is valuable (especially for lazy truck farmers) in that it practically does not need watering - unless it rains you once a month.
Places require the most possible solar, from the soil - sandy loam and light loose loam. Does not tolerate the close standing of groundwater. And in general, yam is not difficult to grow a date in the North-West of Russia, not to mention its southern regions.
My friend 12 years ago brought two tubers from Spain (he thought about the lawfulness of moving such objects across the border much later when he dismantled the suitcase at home. -The Customs either did not notice them, or ignored them.) He did not even think about it. then, it is impossible).
Since then, he also grows sweet potatoes at the dacha near Luga. Not as an alternative to potatoes, but rather as an exotic and a source of usefulness: the yam is rich in them, but this is a separate topic. And most importantly - stored tubers without problems: just in the box at a temperature of about 17 ° C in the pantry.
Planting sweet potato
Approximately in mid-February, sweet potatoes are placed in a tray with moist peat, so that, lying on their side, they are immersed in peat to half. Ten days later, shoots begin to appear (there are no visible eyes in tubers, and the sprout climbs as if from an empty place). When the shoots reach about 7 cm. they are rooted in cups with a peat-and-sand mixture, 1: 1. They take root quickly and willingly (for a day), especially if they are not cut, but gently plucked under the base, 15 minutes to dry and stuck in a glass with a mixture.
And all charged glasses for several days to cover with a transparent package. Rooted cuttings do not get sick at all (just make sure that there is no spider mites), and at usual care in warm and light (in the beginning desirable досветка) a place by the middle of May grow to about 70 sm see.
They are planted in ridges of width 60-80 cm and of arbitrary length, filled with full mineral fertilizer, and covered until mid-June with a film (film tunnel).
Plants, expanding, cover the entire soil of the ridge so that there are no problems with the weeds.
Reference by topic: What unusual plants can be grown in the country
Batate: care
Watered enough times in 10 days, combining with top-dressing of the dumped grass, and it is possible and not to water at all, if there is enough rain, and the dry phosphoric fertilizer is simply scattered around the surface of the ridge in July and if possible (if you pierce through the tops) soil.
In 20-x numbers in August, the tops of all the weaves must be pinched, this will contribute to the increase in the size of tubers. And in the middle of September the harvest begins.
Ten kilograms of tubers, as in the tropics, you will hardly dig up, but with a weight of 200-400 g and up to 1 kg - quite (for Leningrad region, to the south - larger).
It can be raw (similar to carrots) and thermally processed in all ways. In fact, delicious, worth a try!
© Author Dmitry Volkov
Tips from an experienced gardener to grow sweet potato
My first experience of growing sweet potato was not very successful. Now I know what was wrong: cuttings cut from tubers, put into the water too early, in March. They give roots very quickly, for 4 days. A week later they were transplanted into small containers with earth. Since before landing it was still far away, night temperatures did not reach 16 ° C, the seedlings were greatly overgrown. It was in 2016 year. At the same time, my friends grew sweet potato, so in 2017 I planted tubers according to their experience.
I planted it in a comb, covered with plastic wrap, and covered the seedlings with cut five-liter bottles. When it got warmer, I removed the bottles. The harvest was better.
In some sources, I read that sweet potato is grown instead of potatoes. But somehow I did not like the dishes, in which potatoes were used instead of potatoes. Baked in the oven I like, the chips are delicious. I think, for myself I will not grow a lot of sweet potatoes, I will plant a bush four.
The harvest of sweet potato is quite possible. The main thing is not difficult. For seedling, a couple of tubers should be stored at room temperature in a dry, dark place.
As for my expenses, the purchase amount of several tubers turned out to be ridiculous. In the future, the seed material was already its own. We have sweet potatoes on the Chinese vegetable markets. True, I have not tried, can one of these tubers get seedlings. In general, the pleasure is inexpensive.
My friends in 2017 had a good harvest, a kilogram of 30. Maybe the soil on their site is more suitable for sweet potatoes, maybe the area is better illuminated and warms up better. Or maybe they just put more soul into it.
THE LAND UNDER BATATH MUST BE WELL APPROVED, ROUGH, PLACE SUNNY, NOT HARMFUL. IF DRY, ZHELAELELEN RIVER.
How to store it
Store sweet potato at room temperature, and not in the cellar. At a temperature of 8 ° C, it freezes.
Ways of planting
- In April, cut off a part of the tuber with sprouts and put in a container with the ground, without digging, sprinkling a little. After the onset of warm days - into the ground.
- You can hold the tubers for a couple of days in the light, cut the sprouts and put in water. When the roots appear, transplant into pots with earth. Then - into the ground.
© Author: Alexander Panchenko
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Hello, who wants to breed sweet potatoes, or exchange varieties .. Varieties of sweet potato: White, Manchurian, Taynung T65,
Vinnitsa pink, Japanese, Purple, Porto bateraba, Redgold
Winning 100, Red Ginseng, Garnet, Beauregard. tubers are digging, cured, and they are stored for one year without problems, in a dry and warm room from + 12 to + 22
write: apistumed@yandex.ru
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Yam instead of potatoes
Like many gardeners, he always grew potatoes and spent a lot of time fighting the Colorado potato beetle. In recent years, I chose a different path - instead of potatoes, I grow unsweetened sweet potato varieties.
I plant sweet potato with cuttings. This method almost completely eliminates the transfer to planting infection from tubers. Since autumn, cut the stem of sweet potatoes on the cuttings for 20-25 cm and plant pots, I care for plants as for indoor flowers. In the spring, when the threat of frosts passes, I cut the growing autumn plantations into cuttings, keep them in cups with water for a week to develop rootlets, and send them to the beds.
I get cuttings from germinating tubers in late winter or early spring. One tuber gives about 10 cuttings, which I also root in water before planting. I plant the cuttings to a depth of about 7 cm according to the 60 × 60 cm pattern. If planted thicker, the tubers will be small. I put a handful of wood ash in each hole. Landing is mulched with grass or sawdust.
Until the bushes closed, I constantly loosen the beds. During the formation of the tubers I feed the plants with ashes: 150 g on a bucket of warm water. Feeding I give a day to insist, and then watered at the root.
Sweet potato is an excellent "potato substitute", does not attract a malicious bug, less prone to infections. It is simply amazing that this wonderful plant is so rare in our country.
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How to contact you. I, too, live in Kerch.
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Sweet potato is a real treasure
For the second year now I have been growing sweet potato (sweet potato), I really liked it - it’s delicious and easy to care for.
Seedling
We plant sweet potato seedlings. To get it, I lay the sweet potatoes for germination at the end of winter, for this I cut the tubers into small slices with several eyes. I pour the substrate into the boxes, which I prepare from the ground with the addition of humus and peat. I place cut pieces of sweet potato in this soil - in each box no more than four pieces. I sprout them at a temperature of 18-25 degrees.
Sprouts that reach the height of 15 cm, break off and plant in pots with the same substrate. Thus, from each root is obtained up to 15 stems.
In the process of growing seedlings, I monitor the moisture of the soil, water it with warm water.
In open ground
In May, I plant sweet potato seedlings in the garden on the beds, before planting, I harden a little, I keep the pots in the open air - for a while in the shade, and then in the sun. The best place for sweet potato is open, sunny, but the plant does not tolerate shading. It loves the soil sandy, silty.
In such conditions, the stalks of sweet potatoes stretch along the ground on 1-5 m and take root in the knots. Care is that I periodically loosen the soil next to sweet potato and water the plants, especially in dry weather. No feeding is done, sweet potato grows well without them. Dig up the sweet potato fall in September.
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Decorative forms of sweet potato, or sweet potato (Ipomea batatas), are excellent candidates for creating summer pottery compositions. This South American exot forms long shoots with beautiful leaves, which, depending on the variety, are painted in light or dark green. Everything is clear with the “model career” of sweet potato, but what about the harvest? Here our hero also did not disappoint! Edible tubers with a red peel can be dug at the end of the season, in the fall, when the plant gradually begins to shed its leaves. Tubers are cooked like potatoes. They taste sweetish, but you can use them in cooking only if you have not treated the plant with chemicals.
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The yam are rich for harvest!
Sweet potato in the diet of residents of many tropical countries occupies the same place as ours - potatoes. And according to the method of cultivation, it also resembles potatoes: powerful plants grow on the roots of the tubers that are planted on the roots of which grow new tubers for the season. Although sweet potato belongs not to solanaceous, like potatoes, but to bindweed.
The sweet potato tubers are elongated, without eyes, with a peel and pulp of red, orange, yellow, purple flowers. They taste like fresh-sweet to very sweet. Despite its tropical origin, sweet potato can be grown on its own. Seedlings need to start cooking in January-February. Tubers, not deepening completely, put in boxes with seedlings or installed in a container with nutrient solution and put in the light. A month later on the tubers will appear sprouts that can be separated and rooted. If many seedlings are not required, just cut the tuber with sprouts to pieces and drop each of them into the ground.
Seedlings are planted in the ground when the soil warms up well and frosts pass. Planting pattern - like a potato. The aerial part of the sweet potato is a liana, on which funnel-shaped pink flowers bloom. Greens are edible for pets, young leaves can be added to salads.
From August, pinch the resulting lashes to better root crops. Harvesting - in the fall. You can leave part of the root crops in the ground, digging them up to the winter as necessary.