Trying More New Plants
Like purple sweet potatoes
A Spring tradition
On New Year's Day, still recovering from our trip to NYC, the most highly enjoyable task I set for myself was to remove some of the sprouts from my purple sweet potato, and root the resulting slips in water.
So I got a kick out of 
Ours weren't gifted to us, but purchased in the organic section of a market here in Tennessee . . . I want to say the Publix in Cookeville, but it could easily have been the Kroger in Gallatin; I don't really recall, except that it was about mid-December.
In just over two weeks, this sweet potato, which is Frieda's Stokes Purple variety, as seen above, had ten good sized sprouts ready to remove and root, several of which were already putting out roots while still attached.
There were a couple more on top that I could have rooted, but chose to wait until they were larger, and one on the side and several more on top too small to remove as yet.
So I placed two slips each into five one-pint mason jars, filled them with water purified with a few drops of ionic iodine* (which prevents them from uptaking fluoride), and set them on the sill of one of our dining room windows, which gets ample afternoon sun.
They haven't grown as quickly as if they were in a south facing window, but every one has put on a lot of roots, and I took three more slips today, bringing the total so far to thirteen. I think it's safe to say that we won't be lacking in purple sweet potatoes this season.
I should also note that all of these slips came from one organic purple sweet potato, which isn't even close to slowing down, and I'll continue taking more and more slips until Spring.
I actually purchased three, but I've been wanting to try this variety for a couple of years, so we ate the other two, with the logic that, before I expend a lot of energy on them, I want to make certain that we actually want to eat them.
And yes, they were really good, so they're definitely worth growing.
Additionally, I already knew how prolific sweet potatoes are in putting out slips, so since I knew that a certified organic sweet potato cannot by law be treated with growth inhibitors, I knew that one single sweet potato would supply us with all the slips we needed to grow them, and plenty more.
I'll most likely have plenty to sell at the farmer's market come Spring.
Even better, by starting them so early, we'll have some additional fresh greens that we know are untreated, safe and delicious to eat, and high in nutritional value.
A few years back, I grew sweet potatoes in hay bales for the first time, and one of the things that blew me away was my belated discovery that the sweet potato greens are not only edible, but far more nutritious than the sweet potatoes themselves!
Why didn't I learn this years ago???
I guess I assumed that, like regular potatoes, the entire plant aside from the tubers was toxic, even though I knew the plants were not related. But it literally never even occurred to me that sweet potato leaves would be good to eat for humans.
I was growing Beauregard sweet potatoes at the time, my go to variety for years, as it is a known heirloom, and therefore non-GMO, delicious and highly nutritious, and thrives on neglect. As in seriously thrives. Bumper crops.
The leaves of Beauregard tinge purple in full sun, lending them even more phytochemicals, and increasing their nutritional content substantially.
So in all my years of researching unusual food crops in Florida, including specifically questioning a number of experts on hot weather spinach substitutes, resulted in not one of them even mentioning that everything I was looking for was contained in sweet potato leaves.
Which is pretty hilarious, considering the years I spent, and the haphazard way in which I discovered they were edible all along.
But whereas Beauregard greens are smooth and succulent, the Frieda's Stokes Purple are light green and a trifle hairy, so not as good fresh unless the leaves are really young.
I'm inclined to think they will be better cooked and in smoothies, whereas Beauregard is good in those ways as well as raw, in salads.
But the day is young, this is still an experiment, none of them are even in the ground yet, and they may behave entirely differently once they are in good soil.
So I will be planting the two strongest slips into large tubs of organic soil, to give us eventual sweet potatoes, yes, but even moreso, to jumpstart their production of greens over the winter, in the hope that we can augment not only our own diets, but also those of our rabbits and Guinea pigs.
Fresh leafy greens are at a premium over the winter, and the more we can grow ourselves the better, so I am very much hoping that these do well for us.
I ran across an article yesterday that spoke of the relative nutrition of sweet potatoes versus sweet potato greens, which was eye-opening, but which I am unable to locate at the moment. I'll do my best to post it later.
*For the record, an old farmer's trick is purifying water using four drops of iodine per gallon.
It is still effective, far better for us and our animals than the typical chemicals used for purification, and as a bonus, our bodies actually need the iodine.
And, as iodine uses the same receptors on our cells as fluoride, it prevents fluoride from being absorbed by the body, which can only be a good thing.
I still use four drops per gallon for purification, even though I am using ionic iodine, which is far more easily utilized by the body, and our animals are healthier since I started doing so. I am also enjoying a substantial increase in health, though I am also taking a higher dose.
I am dedicating this post to #naturalmedicine, and to further this project, half the liquid proceeds earned from my post will be transferred into its account.
The photos above were taken by me within the past three weeks with my Samsung Note 8 smartphone.
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art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
