Sweet, Sweet Potato Slips

 

Flowers of the sweet potato vine. Yes, they do look like morning glories. The two are closely related. Both are species of Ipomea. However, morning glories are somewhat toxic, and every bit of the sweet potato plant is edible.

Get ready, set, 

Start! Sprouting, that is.

Last week I put my "seed" sweet potatoes in a paper bag and set them in a warm spot for the "pre-sprouting" process. About the middle of February I'll pull them out of the bag and put them in soil. You can lay them in flats or place them vertically in pots and cover lightly with damp soil. Set them in a warm, bright location and wait for the sprouting to begin -- if it hasn't already started during pre-sprouting.

When the sprouts are six to 12 inches long, cut them free and root them in either water or soil. You can plant them straight into the garden soil, if it's the right time of year. The sweet potato is a tropical plant, so the weather and soil must be warm. 

Last year I started planting sweet potatoes in mid-May (I'm in Northeast Kansas), but can wait until late June. These were robust, rooted slips purchased from a local nursery. I also planted slips ordered from Kansas State University research garden. Those slips don't arrive until sometime in the first two weeks of June, and they are not rooted. While they can be directly planted in the garden, I feel better if I root them first. It is best to root them in pots of soil, rather than in a jar of water. If you root them in water, don't crowd them or cover a lot of the stem with water, as that will encourage rotting. I also ordered some slips from a seed company. They arrived late and were in poor shape due to being shipped during the hottest days we had last summer. I put them in a pots of soil and many of them survived.

This is the first time I've tried growing my own slips. I bought organic sweet potatoes from the grocery store because we've eaten all of the white-fleshed sweet potatoes I grew last year. They must be organic, as conventionally raised ones often have been sprayed with something to prevent sprouting. I will still buy some from the nursery and K-State this year, but the ones I got from the grocery store are different varieties. I will keep you posted. 

Once you've planted the slips in the garden, water them regularly until they are well established. I often water the newly planted slips daily, especially since I'm often watering new seed beds daily at that time.  Hot sun can stress the slips and delay their recovery, so I like to shade them a bit by suspending shade cloth over the beds. And I put up temporary fencing because the rabbits and deer find the leaves much to their liking.

Once the slips are well established, you can almost ignore them, except to water in long, dry periods -- and pruning the vines so they don't cover the entire garden. I've rarely had to water mine. However, in really loose, quickly draining soil, they will need regular watering. 

When pruning the vines, go ahead and eat the leaves. The younger ones are tastier and more tender. Cook them or eat them raw. The vines produce a milky sap, but don't let that worry you.

In late September to just before the first frost in October, I will start digging. Don't leave them until after frost or the soil starts to cool a lot, as that will damage your tubers. 

For more information on a sweet potato expert, check out this video from the Douglas County Extension Master Gardeners YouTube channel. It's from the advanced education segment that followed one of our meetings.

Winter Study

Winter. Baskets of bounty are a thing of the past season.

In the midst of winter

And the garden is so bare.

So what do I do now?

Stand out there and stare?

Now's the time for study,
To learn about the plants.
Then when spring comes
You'll be all out of can'ts.

Because you can.

That's what I say.
Check out these educational links
And learn some more today.

Then head down to the library
To find yourself some books.
Gardening just isn't 

As hard as it looks.

You can do lots in the winter... like, study. Head on down to the library and check out a bunch of books on various garden topics. If you're planning to save seeds from your garden this year, look for "The Seed Garden," published by the Seed Savers Exchange. You'll learn how far apart to plant different varieties of almost every vegetable so you get clean genes, as well as many other tips on seed saving. 

"The Organic Gardeners Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control" is a great book for troubleshooting garden issues. 

If you'd like to check out insect material, look for "Bees, Wasps, and Ants," by Eric Grissell. A really lovely book to read if you have any interest in honeybees is "Sweetness and Light," by Hattie Ellis. Also look for "Letters from the Hive," by Stephen Buchmann, and "The Hive," by Bee Wilson.

There are so many books on gardening that it is impossible to list them all. These are just a few on my bookshelf that I like to go to from time to time. Comment with your favorite book about gardening and how the rest of nature impacts your garden.

Lots of material also can be found online. Kansas State Research and Extension has an online "bookstore" from which you can download for free numerous publications. During the pandemic, K-State also started producing a monthly online event call the Garden Hour, at noon on the first Friday of each month. You must register to receive a link to access the live broadcasts, but you can find previous episodes on the Garden Hour Archive. 

Also during the pandemic, my Extension Master Gardeners group created a YouTube channel where we now post recordings of the educational presentations that follow each monthly meeting, as well as a few Speakers Bureau videos, short, educational videos by individual Master Gardeners. We also developed a more extensive Web site that includes upcoming and past activities, as well as blog posts about various topics.

Counting seeds and conducting germination tests on them is another winter activity. I went into detail on how to do a germination test in a Barefoot Gardener post last year. The next post detailed results.

I will try to post, from time to time, links to other sources, as well as helpful books. Mother Earth News is a good place to look for information, as well, both the hard copy magazine and online blogs.

Remember, winter is a time for rest, though. Don't get too caught up in being productive. Study and rest.

However, it is time to start transplants for onions, leeks and cabbage, as well as to start sprouting sweet potatoes for slips, which I will discuss in my next post.

The Apples of My Eye

 Apparently, yesterday (Jan. 17) was a traditional date for wassailing the fruit trees.

I missed it again.

I don't know what is magical about that particular date, so do your wassailing whenever it suits... but in winter.

For those of you not familiar with this tradition, wassailing the fruit trees means having a party and parading through the orchard, banging drums, pots and pans, cymbals or making any other kind of raucous noise, presumably to scare away evil spirits that might harm the trees. Or maybe it's to wake up the trees. It's not clear. Then you select the main tree, or the most productive one and pour hard cider (preferably made from the recent harvest) on its roots, blessing it. You and your entourage must have cider, too. In some traditions the poorest tree would be threatened if it didn't shape up. I'd prefer to give it kind words and extra fertilizer. Sometimes toast is hung from the tree branches. I don't know why toast. It's just a thing that's done. Whatever, whenever, make it a party... even if it's just for you and the trees. Have fun. Hug the trees.

The prettiest apples from this past year's crop.

It seems more than coincidental that wassailing falls in the midst of pruning season for apple trees. A couple of weeks ago we spent about a week pruning ours, one tree a day. We've still got a couple more to do, but that needs to wait until some more urgent projects are taken care of -- like cutting firewood for next winter. We've got until March to finish the pruning. Other fruit trees are pruned at a different time of year.

Pruning goes much easier when two people are working on the same tree. One of us pruned from the ground, while the other climbed onto the ladder. When one of us was uncertain about whether to make a cut here or there, we had a second opinion readily available.

Our homegrown apples are all gone, except for those I made into apple butter. Apple butter is very simple to make, especially with a slow cooker. I used my 5-quart slow cooker, but any size will work, depending on how many apples you have. 

The most time-consuming part for you is cutting up the apples -- especially when they are as dinged up and chewed up as ours were. Slice, core and chop the apples, no need to peel. Fill the slow cooker to slightly mounded, but so the lid will stay on. Add seasonings, if you wish. I added a teaspoon or two of cinnamon to my recent batch, but I don't always add spices. Our apples were a little on the dry side, so I added about a cup of apple juice. However, I have made apple butter without the apple juice. Turn the slow cooker on high for about an hour or so, until you see the apples begin to cook down, then turn to low. Then leave them be, except for an occasional stir, for eight or 12 hours, until it's as thick as you want it. At some point, you'll want to crack the lid to allow moisture to escape. That will allow it to become really thick. 

I canned this year's batch of apple butter, but I often just put it in small jars and freeze it. Canning it requires the addition of lemon juice (but, oops, I forgot it) and the extra steps of  processing. Fortunately, it can be processed in a boiling water bath.

Another way we use a lot of apples, besides fresh eating, it to bake them, freeze them, and use them in cobblers and crumbles (we haven't discovered a way to may a serviceable pie crust, or there would be pie, too). After baking the apples, we put them in the pans in which we'll bake the cobblers and freeze. We release them from the pan by setting it in a little hot water and turning it upside down on a cookie sheet. We the stick it in the freezer to harden the slightly thawed bottom, then wrap in waxed paper and stick them in a plastic bag in the freezer.

 Then we can put together a cobbler or crumble at short notice, by taking out the formed apples and setting them in a baking pan. (BTW, they are really tasty when still frozen.) It doesn't take long for it to thaw enough to add the topping and bake. Please feel free to adjust seasonings and such in the following recipe to suit your taste.

Baked Apples
Approximately 4 quarts of cut up apples
½ cup brandy, apple juice, or water
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cardamom
 
Mix seasonings with brandy and pour over apples in a large bowl. Toss until apples are well coated. Put in baking dish; cover. Place in preheated 350-degree oven for 1 hour or more, until very soft.

Put in dishes in which you want to freeze them, or cool a bit, top with crust of your choice, and bake.

Deeelicious.

 Up next: Wintering and sweet potato slips
To be followed by more recipes!