- in Gardening by Alexis Rodrigo
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Grow Sweet Potatoes in the Tower Garden: Experiment Update
Who says you can't grow tubers and root crops in the Tower Garden?
In fact, some people have tried, with hilarious results.
Image Credit: Tower Garden
Can You Grow Sweet Potatoes in the Tower Garden?
I wanted to do something different.
I wanted to grow a root crop, but not for the root. I wanted to grow it for the greens instead.
That's why I decided to experiment with sweet potatoes.
Sweet potato tops ("talbos ng kamote" as we call them in the Philippines) are even more nutritious than the roots. And they're almost impossible to find here in North America — even in Asian supermarkets.
Step 1. Grow sweet potato slips.
I grew these sweet potato slips on my kitchen windowsill. See how healthy those roots are!
The first step is to grow sweet potato slips. These are seedlings or starter plants you grow from the sweet potato itself.
It's as simple as placing a sweet potato, round end down, in a jar of water. Set it on a sunny window sill.
And wait.
Step 2. Sandwich the sweet potato slips in a rock wool cube.
When the sweet potato slips have healthy roots, they're ready to be transferred to rock wool cubes.
Slice a rock wool cube into two pieces. Sandwich the sweet potato slip in between, and secure with an elastic.
Step 3. Pop the sweet potato into the Tower Garden.
Pop the rock wool cube into an empty plant port in your Tower Garden.
Step 4. Carry on and grow.
Now, take care of your Tower Garden as usual, and wait for the sweet potato plants to grow.
At first, nothing seemed to be happening. For the first couple of weeks, I didn't even see new root growth, although the sweet potatoes weren't wilted or anything like that.
And then, all of a sudden, the leaves are looking bigger ....
... and the vines threaten to take over the Tower.
Step 5. Harvest and enjoy.
You can begin harvesting the sweet potato tops as soon as the plant looks well-established.
As with other greens, the more you cut them back, the bushier they get.
Should You Grow Sweet Potato Greens in the Tower Garden?
Now you know that you can grow sweet potatoes in the Tower Garden.
The question is, should you?
Yes, if you love sweet potato greens, then I highly recommended planting them in your Tower Garden. That way, you can enjoy them year-round.
Otherwise ... I would prefer to grow other greens.
Why is that?
Because sweet potatoes take a long time to grow. In the amount of time I was waiting for my sweet potatoes to be large enough to harvest, I could've planted — and harvested — faster-growing greens like sorrel, lettuce, and the like.
For this reason, I decided to pull out the entire plants when I harvested. This made room for seedlings that had been waiting spots to open up on my Tower Garden.
Of course, if you have either the regular Tower Garden Extension Kit or the Micro-Greens Extension Kit, then this wouldn't be an issue. ;-D
Have you tried sweet potato greens?
The Bottom Line:
You can grow root crops and tubers like sweet potatoes in your Tower Garden if you grow them for the green, leafy tops.
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