Growing Sweet Potato in the Garden Route. Patats in die Tuinroete

I haven't been posting as frequent as I want because I've been on leave for about a week now, as is normally the case in April. It's such a glorious month, don't you think? The milder weather, all those public holidays and to top it all off; my birthday. What could be better?

Another awesome April surprise was my sweet potato harvest. And boy, what a harvest it was! See, the whole "experiment" started last year mid-winter when my second mom gave me three medium-sized sweet potatoes to start slips with. Yes, I did my research! Unlike the normal potato, which is planted with a seed potato ('moer' in Afrikaans), the sweet potato is planted with slips - or basically stems that grow from a sweet potato lying in water. This is because potatoes are plants that form edible tubers whereas the actual sweet potato is a thickening of  its plant's roots, or that is how I understand it.

By the beginning of October my slips were ready to plant. You know this is the case when the slips are six inches long or more. Most will have roots on them as well. Simply break the slips off where they're attached to the potato and its ready to be planted. This is how my slips looked on 8 October 2013:

Slips started off from 3 sweet potatoes/Ranke wat met 3 patats begin is

Most of them went into the ground on the same day. Since I'm not blessed with limitless space, they had to go in between shrubs, conifers, between small fruit trees and even partially under the massive swamp cypress. 

Small cleared space for sweet potatoes between the grass, ground cover and conifers

The one thing all sources were in agreement with is that sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) should be left in the ground as long as possible. This is due to the plant being native to tropical regions of Central and South America; therefore requiring warm nights and an average daytime temperature in the mid-twenties (centigrade). I decided I would leave my plants in peace until the beginning or middle of April, since March is still basically a summer month in my part of the Garden Route region. I could afford this luxury because I had planted the sweet potatoes so they could crawl into our normal garden, or just form a kind of green, living ground-cover for the soil in the fruit bed. They would therefore fulfill a dual purpose, because not only would I (hopefully) get to harvest some sweet potatoes, but the dense green foliage would help the soil retain moisture in the height of summer. Neat hey?

Sweet potato bed, instead of fruit bed?/Appel, laventel en kumquat skaars sigbaar tussen patatranke

The after photo (7 April 2014):

The fruit bed, sans sweet potatoes/Vrugtebedding na die patat-oes

Did the fruit bed deliver sweet potato-wise? Yes - over and over! I think it is the first thing I planted that wasn't just a success because it gave me pleasure to plant and harvest my own fruit and veg, but also a financial success... I actually put in way less than I got out. Wonderful!!!

Sweet potato harvest from the fruit bed/Patat-oes uit die vrugtebedding

How did the two slips planted six months before fare stuck between grass, ferns and conifers? Well:

Just as the sweet potato harvest was about to start/Nét voor die patats geoes is

Sweet potato harvest from conifer bed/Patat-oes uit conifer bedding

And so, from three average sweet potatoes I harvested 6kg six months later. I am amazed! This is clearly a vegetable I will plant over and over in my garden. Not fussy, no pests, minimal watering, big harvest. The only thing I noticed, once again, is that they shouldn't be planted in the shade. Partial shade is fine, although full sun (6h+ a day) leads to the highest yields. My biggest single sweet potato came from the sunniest part of the fruit bed. It weighed in at a respectable 750g... unfortunately I sliced it into pieces with the spade. Such is life.