I have this rogue yam that I bought sometime around Christmas. I was planning to eat the delicious tuber soon, so I set it on top of my printer. About a week later I noticed that it had developed four long shoots growing out of the end of it. I decided to let nature take it’s course and see what happened.
It is now early May and those four shoots have been joined by nearly a dozen friends, all of which are about a foot long and showing off baby leaves. I would like to somehow finish growing this baby outside, but I have no idea what to do next. Do I just stick it in a planter of dirt? What kind of dirt? I read something about growing potatoes in a trash can, is growing yams similar?
Now that the question has been answered, might I ask a follow up? If food you are going to eat soon goes on the printer, where do you store the food you’re not planning on eating right away?
I might offer a variation on the previous instructions. I’ve grown sweet potatoes on the farm and the method used was as follows: Cut the runners, or stalks, off the sweet potato you have used for seed. These are called “draws”. Stick the cut end of the draw in freshly turned earth, at a depth of about 1/2 inch. Keep watered regularly. This draw will root itself with a primary root and then along the runner. Your new potatoes will grow off these roots, along the runner.
for the sake of clarity I will offer this edit. Runner=Draw=Stalk, in this context. Don’t forget to "cure’ the new potatoes you get.
Do I keep the runners standing straight up when planted? Or do I lay them down to plant them like tomatoes, and keep a little bit of the end sticking up?
I have had luck planting tropical type food plants in tyres. The black colour helps to heat the soil up during the day and the rubber gives some insulation at night
I had a plant on the deck last year that was labeled “sweet potato plant.” it was very viney and the leaves were a beautiful purple color. Is that the same leaf I’d get if I plant an actual sweet potato or is this some kind of spinoff from the real thing?
Decorative plant of the same family (which is also, IIRC, the same family as morning glories and other viners). It doesn’t grow edible tubers, and the edible sweet potato’s leaves are usually green or chartreuse.
The cut end is pressed into the soil at abt 1/2- 1 inch, the remainder of the runner is laid on the ground. A little soil sprinkled over it might help, but don’t bury it completely.