Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Growing sweet potatoes in container

I lost my patience after a few months watching one of the container garden area invaded by one sweet potatoes plant that we grow from shoot that we bought from local weekend market in November and harvested the plant today.  I stuck the shoot in a container that were growing sadly looking Pak Chois. The plant grew so fast. The sweet potato plants should at least be 17 weeks old now.
A very invasive plant.

Lenay have been coaxing me to harvest the plant since 2 weeks ago, she spied tuber when she dig some of the upper soil. But I wanted to make sure that we get at least a decent harvest. I have arranged the pumpkin vein in front of the polystyrene containers so the bottom were unseen. Suddenly the pumpkin vein were moved to another direction, I wonder why. The only person who are involved in the garden will be Lenay, she was purposely sending me a message because she knows this will pique my interest. Do you see what is at the bottom of the polystyrene container?
 Some sweet potato tubers growing out from the container. Some were growing underneath the container as well. Sweet potatoes roots have gone deep in the ground. If we have left them still growing, we might get some more tubers. The weather at night is already below 20 degree Celcius not sure about that. 
I did not uprooted the whole plant though, I just snipped the leaves from the main container and let the other sweet potatoes veins that have grown roots from sweet potatoes vein nodes on neighbour containers and ground to keep on growing. Sweet potatoes tubers that were produced in the container.
Sweet potato new shoots were harvested as well and not gone to waste, stir-fried with anchovies, chilies, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and oyster sauce. How do you like to eat sweet potato shoots?
Today harvest, I did not know there were spring onions growing in the same container with that sweet potatoes. Our first sweet potatoes harvest grown in container.
We hope sweet potatoes growing on the ground soil will be produce much better. But I am happy that our growing sweet potatoes in container trial did actually work. How long does it takes usually to harvest sweet potatoes?

23 comments:

cikmanggis said...

oh seronoknya!!!Diana boleh masak lemak daun keledek campur dengan keledek sekali tau:)sedap.Kami selalu makan masak lemak putih daun keledek dgn ikan goreng dan sambal belacan:)boleh pengsan:)...teringin nak tanam keledek

i amsterdam said...

Ohh... tak tahu pun daun keledek boleh dimakan...

takaeko said...

Ohhh! Sweet potatoes,,! I and my wife love it! I was thinking seriously if I should have planted usual potatoes or sweet potatoes and eventually chosen an usual potato since it's multi-purpose.
I would enjoy " Yaki-Imo" if I'd chosen sweet potatoes.

p3chandan said...

Looking at your success with sweet potatoes sangat 'menerujakan' akak..hahaha (got such word arr?) Teringin nak makan pucuk keledek, tak penah tau boleh dimakan pun. I love to boil the sweet potatoes and eat with sugar. Orang kampung punya makanan ringan!

~TastyTravels~ said...

Jealous of your sweet potatoes! I wanted to try okinawan sweets (the purple ones) but Oregon doesn't have the weather for it! Congrats on your tubers!

Anonymous said...

I might have to go out on the weekend and check on mine now I have seen these mine have been in for about 4 months and like you are going everywhere I need to keep reminding them where they belong.

littlekarstar said...

Your sweet potatoes are fantastic! I've never grown them before...I've never eaten the shoots either but your stirfry looks so good I'll have to try it next year! Are they all in full sun?

Malar said...

I never planted sweet potato before but your harvest is really good! Big tuber! One of it looks like a duck!
Your sweet potato shot dish looks yummy!

Stephanie said...

I love sweet potato shoots! They are tasty and nice. For this vege to taste better, I put a little more oil than usual when stir-frying. Oh I do like sweet potatoes also ;-)

One said...

Diana, I shall award you the title " Container Gardener Queen".

Every time, I come here, I remember my mission of creating abundance in fruits and edibles. When I see a critter, I forget...

Kat said...

That's a great sweet potato harvest! Especially for being grown in containers, I'm not brave enough to dig up mine yet, I don't think they've done much..

TK said...

Wah..Gemuk keledek you.Sedap tu kalau goreng.. i never plant sweet potatoes. Selalu beli je. Here in the east coast ada byk varities. I mmg suka sgt sweet potatoes especially yg warna purple or orange tu.

Bangchik and Kakdah said...

They look alright.., with all sort of shapes... haha.

petite nyonya said...

wow, such nice harvest! i plant sweet potatoes too but mainly for the leaves. delicious fry with chili and belacan. the clay soil at my backyard makes it impossible for tubers to grow. i did consider planting in container to get the tubers but hasn't tried it yet.

Mr. H. said...

Your sweet potatoes look good bet they tasted good too. Your stir fry looks delicious and with any luck I will be stir frying my own sweet potato shoots this year as we are going to try growing them again....wish me luck.:)

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

CikManggis~ Terima kasih bagi idea walau sibuk dengan persiapan Angah kahwin.Sayang tengok pucuk tu kalau tak makan. Stok sayur kat kebun pun dah makin kurang.

i...amsterdam~Saya pun mula tak tahu boleh makan sebenarnya. Tapi nampak kat pasar ada jual ikat-ikat tu yang dapat idea boleh dimakan.

Takaeko~ You might want to try growing sweet potato this year as they don't really need much care.

p3chandan~Keledek rebus dengan parut kelapa pun sedapkan. Kangkung dengan keledek adik beradik.

Holly~I wanted to try the purple ones too but did not have the time to plant them.

ElsieMay~ O-ho, I also need to remind them where they belong, its good to know I am not the only one. You can bandicoot them like potatoes too.

Mrs. Bok~ They grow much better in full sun. The one I tried growing in partial shade have really slow growth it won't make time for harvest.

Malar~ You might want to try sweet potatoes as the monkey won't see the tubers unless they dig the soil;-). You are right it looks like a duck.LOL.

Stephanie~Thank you for the tip. I will try that.

One~ Ilhan feel the same way, he suppose to help me but the critters always distract him.

Kat~ Me too, have not dig up the one growing on the ground.

TK~Tak sabar nanti nak pergi east coast beli variety yang lain pastu tanam;-). My hubby org KT.

Bangchik dan Kakdah~ I was shocked at first looking at our sweet potatoes shapes. LOL.

Petite Nyonya~I have some planted in clay soil which I hope will break up the soil. Not sure whether I will get any tubers though yet.

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Mr. H~ Good Luck. Hope you have fat tubers and many young shoots for stir-fry. Its hard to predict every summer what it will be like. As for us we had a cool summer and a very short once. Therefore eggplants and chilies were not doing well as previous summer. But good for tomatoes.

Daphne Gould said...

I wish I could grow sweet potatoes, but they aren't an easy crop here. We are just too cold.

Hughbert said...

Good work! I am leaving mine a little bit longer, till the shoots stop growing. They need quite a long season I think, maybe 7 months. Mine always seem to grow slowly to begin with then after the middle of summer they start to go crazy!

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Daphne~You might have to start them indoor first then..

Hughbert~I think the sweet potatoes are still alright to let them growing before the weather gets really cold and lots of rain. Do you grow them from slips or shoots?

Anonymous said...

Impressive! I've been reading this blog for a while and kudos on making container/pot gardening works. I have an aquaponic system in my backyard and also a small potted garden. Looking at those sweet potatoes growing gives me hope that I can grow asparagus in a pot as well, the project shall commence soon. My blog is at mahfudzaquaponic.blogspot.com do visit on your free time!

Jay said...

Wah.. am so impressed oh.... Hye, wanna exchange blogs? see u k

antonnettemira said...

Sweet potatoes has so many benefits to our health. We can also mix this in our foods or steam it to eat. Your readers might try to plant sweet potatoes in their places too.

Wellness Philippines