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| Different varieties of sweet potato mingling |
I have
recently come to terms with my obsessive (if rather uninformed) pursuits in
gardening, especially with respect to growing the more unusual, the
not-so-adapted and the plain impossible here in the deep south of Sweden. Since
I see no imminent end to this rather newfound passion of mine I figured I might
as well make an attempt to systematize my efforts and along the way share some
of my endeavors with anyone out there who might, just maybe, be interested.
Hence the rationale for starting this ‘weblog’, I guess it’s as good as any.
While my
ambitions for next year are great, the unusual, not-so-adapted and plain
impossible this year mostly consists of a second-year attempt to grow sweet
potatoes. I am tracking down and trying different cultivars in
the hope of finding one or more that consistently produce reliably outside a
greenhouse here and that happens to be delicious as well. Last year’s attempt
produced a rather meager crop with the odd massive tuber here and there, but I
had a late start and a lot of other excuses as well.
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| This used to be two separate rows... |
This year I’m
growing 7 (or maybe more - I obviously have a lot to learn when it comes to botanical
bookkeeping) different varieties. I have some Georgia Jet and T65, two
early-maturing varieties kindly sent to me by Frank Van Keirsbilck. These are
commonly grown in more temperate climates and should be able to produce quite
well here. They got off to a bit of a late start this year though, so I’m not
quite expecting a bumper harvest, but as long as I get enough tubers to produce
my own slips next year I’ll be one happy man indeed. The rest is a bunch of
unknown varieties that I collected from tubers in different shops here and
there: 1 variety with purple skin/purple flesh, 1 purple skin/white flesh, 1
white flesh/white skin, and at least 2 different orange fleshed varieties. People
who know me will readily affirm that I have an uncanny fascination for ipomoea batatas, so thinking about the
day not so long from now when I will finally be able to lift all these
beautiful specimens and see what they have been up to the whole summer makes me
very excited indeed…
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| No seeds, but very pretty! |
It has been
pretty amazing sweet potato weather here this summer, with
record-braking 30 degree temperatures, so I feel like I’m entitled to nothing
short of an amazing harvest this year (uhum…). I planted most of the plants on
a ridge covered with plastic mulch, and, in a somewhat ill-controlled experiment that
included me forgetting to use the same varieties for both rows, then
constructed a polytunnel over half of them and used a floating row cover over the
other half, which I lifted fairly late in the season (end of July-ish), once
the plants started to bulge out of the space they had been allocated. The polytunnel I left in
place until late August, when I started to fear that the lack of space/increased
rains would create rot on the vines. I also planted some latecomers, including
the T65 and the Georgia Jet, in a separate patch without any mulch (I am, after
all, looking for varieties that grow without too much pampering). If the
foliage is anything to go by (and I know that it’s not), then the plants are
doing great so far, with plenty of healthy growth. Two of the unknown varieties
started to flower in the height of summer, and while I will probably have to
store away my ambition of getting any seed for now, I have at least marked them
as potential seed-producing contenders in some undefined future. All of the
plants that flowered are in the space that had the row cover, so now I’m
wondering if that might at all have played any role in inducing flowering. If
anyone has any more informed theories about this, I’m all ears.
