I Wet My Plants

A couple of months ago I started an experiment for growing my own sweet potatoes and so far it had been a positive experience. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to get the growth off of the seed tuber and into the ground. I started reading Ken Allan’s book, Sweet Potatoes for the Home Garden, and still had no clue how to process them. I finally found an informative article here that explained what to do.

Before I go any further, for my own sanity, let’s get the terms down right. From what I understand a sweet potato seed tuber sprouts, then grows shoots that you cut off to root in water to make slips. There. Got it? It took me a while to figure it out as folks seems to use these terms interchangeably.

You can remove the shoots once they grow to a height of 8″ - 10″ tall. The shoots in this somewhat blurry picture were well over 18″ tall so I was good to go:

There were about five shoots growing on this seed tuber: three below the water line and two above. Here’s a close-up of what I was dealing with:

Lots of roots from both the shoots below the water line and the seed tuber. Holding the seed tuber firmly with my left hand, I found the base of one of the shoots with my right hand. I firmly twisted and pulled the shoot, disentangling its roots from the rest of the root system. Here’s a blurry photo of it:

You can kind of see where the shoot snapped off, leaving a yellowish patch on the seed tuber. Here’s the slips that I pulled off:

Whoo! Look at those roots! I’m actually a couple of weeks behind planting these slips out, mostly because I was too scared to wreck them. Here’s all the roots I was left with at the bottom of the seed tuber once I pulled off all the shoots that were below the water line:

The shoots that grew from below the water line already had nice root systems (see above). There were two shoots that had grown from the very top of the seed tuber and didn’t have a root system at all:

I snapped those shoots off and put them in a large tray of water to help them develop roots (apparently this takes a few days). I also put the other slips into the tray as well, ensuring that their roots were covered with water while the leaves and stem were dry:

I tossed the spent seed tubers into the trash. The next step is planting the slips in your garden. More on that later.

Tuesday night I lugged all my trays of extra tomato plants over to my in-law’s garage to pass final judgment on the remaining 58 plants. I decided to keep about 10 plants for myself and had to find homes for the rest. I made a few calls and was able to find homes with Ottawa Hortiphillia (who asked for 4 so I gave her five), Hit Pay Dirt (who wanted 5 so I gave her 7) and a friend of a friend (who wanted 4 so I gave her 5). Ha ha, I’m Saint Tomatoless.

On Wednesday I dropped off the trays of tomatoes, putting a fierce dent in the extras back at home. Here they all are nestled in the trunk of my car:

There’s Old Flame, Mirabelle Blanche, Pruden’s Purple, Black Pear, Black from Tula, Hawaiian Pineapple, Bonny Best, Red Lightning, Color Mixture, Green Zebra and Arkansas Traveller smooshed in there. I also gave 10 plants to my mother-in-law to give out at her work.

I had a total of 25 left over of Mirabelle Blanche, Marmande, Earliest + Best, Hawaiian Pineapple, Color Mixture, White Wonder, Sausage-Opalka and Pruden’s Purple. I decided that they’d all get planted in the back yard at the in-law’s to be left to survive or perish. I did manage to save a few extra for my 7 year-old nephew who wants to put some tomato plants around his pool.

All I have to do now is to pot up my remaining 10 plants in storage containers, probably sometime this weekend. Busy busy.

In mid-April I was given some Georgia Jet sweet potato seed roots from Ottawa Hortiphilia. Georgia Jets are the most productive variety for northern climates as it has the shortest growing period of 80 - 90 days. Of course I had no idea how to grow them and promptly potted them in soil with a drink of water.

I found out later that was the completely wrong thing to do. I emailed Ken Allan, author of “Sweet Potatoes for the Home Garden”, who told me to stand the seed roots up in containers using toothpicks, fill with water to the 1/2 to 3/4 mark on the tuber and to keep in warm place (window sills are not good because they are cold at night). So I did that while I waited for his book to arrive. This photo, taken on April 17th, shows the correct way to prepare your seed roots:

I would move them to the windowsill during the day for warmth and then move them onto the dining room table at night so they wouldn’t get chilled. On May 1st, the seed roots looked like this:

Exciting!

Everyday I would check the water level, topping it up when it got below the 3/4 mark of the seed root. Sometimes I would change the water when it got kind of yucky-looking.  It wasn’t a very satisfying task until mid-May when I spied my first slip shoots:

You can clearly see two little shoots on the top left and right of the seed root. Woohoo! It was working! Over the past month, these little seed roots sent up so many slips they had to be given bigger containers to hold more water and give more room for some of the side slips. Here’s how they looked about 4 days ago:

They’re huge!  Now I have to figure out how to plant them!

In my haste to rid my garden of the evil Striped Cucumber Beetle, I bought two different kinds of insecticidal dust containing Rotenone from a local hardware store. I never used it, especially after calling my favourite organic gardening centre and finding out that they don’t carry products with Rotenone as it’s been linked to Alzheimer’s. Yikes! They suggested a couple of different products so I headed out there after work last night.

I was all ready to buy Safer’s Trounce until the horticulturalist told me about End-All II, a concentrated product by the same company that is a miticide/insecticide/acaricide. It controls all stages of aphids, whitefly, scale, spider mites, and mealybugs on houseplants; and aphids, caterpillars, beetles and other listed insects on fruit trees, landscape trees, ornamentals, flowers, shrubs and vegetables. It’s a better product than Trounce as it contains an oil that is more effective against pests. It also said I could reapply it again in 10 - 14 days if the pests return, it could be used up until the day before harvest and I should wash my vegetables before consumption. I felt pretty confident about the product so I bought it, even though it was a bit pricey and way more than I needed:

I mixed it with water in a sprayer and headed out side.

Apparently striped cucumber beetles are more active during the evening and early morning, hiding out in cracks and crevasses in the soil during the heat of mid-day. So I was waging war at a good time. I sprayed the crap out of each damaged leaf in my garden, on top and underneath, all the way down to the stem as well as the newly germinated tray of replacement cucurbits that I thought I had tucked safely away in the house (I had found two beetles inside my house and immediately smooshed them).

I checked the leaves this morning and didn’t see any sign of any beetles. The day before I had seen about 4 or 5, but none this morning. Success!

Then I took the spray bottle and sprayed my Asiatic lilies (infested with red lily beetles) and gifted brugmansia (infested with spider mites) for good measure.

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it works!

Ahhhh! My garden has been infested with striped cucumber beetles! Here’s a picture of the damned bug:

I noticed them last night when I was inspecting my garden. There was a lot of leaf damage on all of my curcubits and I was trying to figure out what had done it. I scooped up two that were mating, took them to work and found out (to my dismay) that they are striped cucumber beetles.

Here’s just a small sample of their destruction:

I read up on these little buggers and started to lose hope. After mating, females lay their eggs in the soil at the base of the plant. The larvae hatch in a week and begin feeding on the roots and stems of the plant. After two months they pupate and the adults start feeding on the vines, foliage, flowers and fruit of the plant. Not only that, these little f%@&#%* spread bacterial wilt to cucumbers and muskmelons. Prevention and non-chemical control involves rotating cucurbit crops each year, covering with floating row covers, applying a heavy mulch or picking them off by hand (difficult as these guys fly). The chemical option is to use Rotenone, something that I am loathe to do.

It’s looking like I’m going to have to rip these plants out and not have any fresh zucchini, cucumber or melons at my home garden this year.

UPDATE

I called a local organic gardening centre and they said to use Safer’s Trounce or to plant radishes near the area.  I mentioned Rotenone and they said they don’t carry it anymore as it was linked to Alzheimer’s.  So, Trounce it is!