Sweet potatoes

Despite enjoying sweet potatoes we have never tried to grow them.  With our move to a warmer climate, I decided it would be fun to see if we could grow some of our own.  Potatoes are one of the crops that it is nice to buy organic or grow on your own since they can have a lot of residues and pesticides on them which are hard to diminish before cooking.

I think potatoes are a fun crop to grow because you never know what you have until you dig them up.  They are a "you reap what you sow" crop because the more you hill them up, the larger and the more potatoes you get.  If you put them in the ground and don't put any work into them, you will get very little.  If you work and hill them up you will get a more bountiful harvest.  A reward for your labor so to speak.  They are also a crop that teaches patience.  You plant them, water them, hill them, pick bugs off  them for weeks and weeks until you get to see what is under the soil. 








About a month ago I cut a sweet potato in half, placed it in a glass of water, and put it on our covered back porch to see if I could get the "eyes" to sprout.  For about three weeks it didn't look like it was doing much and then it just took off..........
It is so cool looking, I am having a hard time wanting to tear it apart to plant the sprouts.  In reality you probably should not wait until they look like this to plant them.

So anyway, because we had some rain overnight and it looks like we will have some over the next few days I had better get busy and get the vines planted today.  That way I won't have to worry too much about the sun wilting the vines and drying them up and I won't have to keep watering from the hose.  Now to find some space in our garden......................................