La sweet potato or sweet potato is the edible root of a perennial climbing plant whose scientific name is Ipomoea sweet potato. Its cultivation and maintenance is simple, as long as you have a land where you can plant it (or sow it) or a very large and deep pot.
So if you want to prepare delicious recipes with it, do not stop reading this article in which I will explain what are the characteristics of the species and its cultivation.
What is the plant like?
La Ipomoea sweet potato, much better known as sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato or sweet potato, it is a perennial climber native to the tropics of South America and Central America. Develops prostrate or fickle stems, thin and herbaceous. The leaves are variable, whole or serrated, up to 5-7 lobates, 5-10cm long and wide, glabrous or pubescent.
The flowers are grouped in cyymose-umbellic inflorescences that are 4-7cm long and are glabrous and lilac or white. The fruit is ovoid, measures 4-5cm and inside we find rounded seeds 3 to 4mm long, brown in color.
Its roots are tuberous, thick and elongated. They are used for consumption.
What is your cultivation?
To be successful with the sweet potato, we recommend that you follow our advice:
- Climate: it must be warm, with temperatures between 12 and 30ºC.
- Siembra: late winter. Direct sowing in seedbed.
- Plantation: in spring, when the risk of pulling has passed.
- Garden: furrows are made about 20-25cm deep and planted at a distance of 30cm between them.
- Pot: if you have a large pot, more than 60cm in diameter and deep, it can be planted using universal growing medium.
- Irrigation: every 2 days in summer and a little less the rest of the year.
- Subscriber: from the first month that it is in the ground or in the large pot, it must be fertilized with organic fertilizers, such as guano.
- Harvest: as soon as the leaves begin to dry, something that will happen three months after planting.
Enjoy growing sweet potato 🙂.