Each spring, I try to grow something I’ve never grown before in the garden.  This year it is artichokes, ginger and sweet potatoes.  Well, the artichoke didn’t do too well, they need alot of water.  What I did harvest was small and kinda bitter.  One of the ginger roots I planted came up and is doing pretty well.  I’m kind of excited to harvest, which should be in the next month.

My other experiment this year was sweet potatoes.  You need to start them very early inside in water to grow sprouts called slips.  I bought seed sweets in early spring and they got mushy.  So I read that you can just use organic sweet potatoes from the store.  They did much better and I ended up having enough for three large pots and a small red wagon.  When you grow them in pots you can put something in the pot for the vines to grow on such as a cage or trellis.  I wasn’t sure they would grow here in Pennsylvania, but they did just fine.  When I looked it up, I read that as long as you get the slips planted before the 4th of July, you’ll be fine.  And… the leaves are edible and can be added to salads.

When it came time to harvest the first pot, I was pretty excited to try my first homegrown yam.  The neat thing about doing it this way is that you can harvest as needed.  I got these planted just before July 4th, and we ended up having enough for one meal, each pot.  Looking forward to starting them earlier next year.  They were pretty neat looking on the front porch too.  They need some protection from the sun so it was a good spot.  All potatoes like moist soil, so you need to have a good method of regular watering if doing them in pots like this.

They really were delicious.  Very sweet and tender.  Absolutely love eating all the treasures right out of the garden.  So very grateful.