Thursday, January 31, 2013

Purple Sweet Potato

I had a great time at Andy Firk's plant swap, the car was loaded up, Cracker belted in, the engine running, then I LUCKILY remembered I'd not snagged a cutting from his big stock tank garden overflowing with vines of a strain of Purple Sweet Potato (Okinawan?) he'd gotten from ECHO. He was giving a talk when I went back in and snagged what I felt was a small piece of vine....on the way home I wished I'd gotten more. But once home I dipped the used plastic shopping bag the vine was curled up in into a rain barrel and left it by my north facing front porch until today. To my delight it had made roots up and down the length of it, so I snipped into rooted sections and potted them in 4 inch pots with good home made soil. I got a total of seventeen! I was able to get two plants from the short piece of a purple stemmed variety of purple sweet potato, also from ECHO, that a woman attending his event gave me. I look forward to growing and sharing these this summer!

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