Beauregard Sweet Potato Vertical Cage Tower Garden 35lb Harvest

Описание: Here's a short video of the dig out of my sweet potato cage, and at the end I think I got a pretty good yield.
This is definitely a vertical gardening technique I'll use again since it allows for larger harvest in a small footprint. During the last few days of April, I was able to plant 15 Beauregard sweet potato vines or slips in a 4 foot by 4 foot area using a piece of livestock fencing. To keep the dirt inside the fencing I use a piece of black plastic. I've grown Yukon Gold potatoes with this cage method but I lined the inside of the fencing with straw. A black plastic sheet is preferred for sweet potatoes because the black will absorb more of the suns heat (sweet potatoes love the heat)

Overall the work and maintenance to grow this was rather low. Most of the work was in setting it up and shoveling in the dirt. Harvesting was a breeze and was literally just unwrapping the fencing and pushing the dirt over to remove the potatoes.

When digging your potatoes you need to be careful with the tubers. Be gentle and take care not to bruise or rip the delicate outer skin. Lightly brush off clumps of dirt and lay out in the sunlight for a day. It's ok to have some dirt on the tuber, and this little bit of dirt will dry up. Sweet potatoes need to cure before you store or prepare them to eat. It's recommended to place them in a dry dark area at about 85 degrees (F) for 10 days. Then after that store them in a dark cool place.

One thing I like about growing sweet potatoes is that unlike regular potatoes (which has poison leaves) you can eat the leaves from the sweet potatoes. Being that the leaves are eatable, you may need to protect your plants from wide life. In the past I've had whole vines eaten away by what I believe to had been either deer or a groundhog. You will be able to trim your vines several times throughout the year thus providing several side dishes of cooked leaves untill the end of the year harvest. Cut vines will last a long time if you place the cut end into water. This will keep your leaf harvest fresh. The vines will grow roots quite easily. If you want to save the leaves to eat at the end of the year, it's best to keep them on the vine and instead of cutting the vine, pull the vine out of the dirt to keep some root on it.

Because of the ease to grow, large yield, versatility (eat the leaves too), space needed, storage length, and ability to regrow vines or "slips" from potatoes to regrow next years crop. I see the sweet potato as a great crop for home gardeners or a preppers shtf survival garden.

Thanks for watching and all feedback is much appreciated.

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