Position your half barrel and ensure it has several drainage holes in the bottom. If using tyres, place two or three on top of each other. If using a large bin bag, open one up and place on the ground. Make about 10 or 12 small holes for drainage in the bottom of the bag. Fill your chosen planting container with prepared planting mix.
Plant 2 to 3 sprouted tubers per bag, barrel or tyre stack. Tubers should be buried about a finger deep. Water as needed in first two weeks and then sparingly thereafter — only when it is dry.
Kumara need between 4 and 5 months to mature. Wait until foliage has all turned yellow before digging carefully. I do this by hand in containers. Store undamaged tubers in sacks in a cool dry, frost-free place. Kumara Ipomoea batatas. Sweet potato.
Harvesting Kumara needs to be harvested before the first frost so harvest time is determined by where you live. Up in the Far North we usually start in April but can reliably leave it until May with no danger of frost.
We try to harvest after the full moon and begin harvesting by scything the tops off the plants. Incidentally the tops are good food and can be used in soups or stews or cooked like spinach.
They are also good stock food and our cows and horses love them. At harvest time our milking cows have them as their daily treat during milking. Once the tops are removed we harvest carefully from one end of the bed using a garden fork. It is very important to harvest carefully and methodically to avoid damaging the kumara as damaged kumara do not store well. As we harvest we lay them on the section of bed already cleared to cure in the sunshine.
So after we harvest each batch we spread them out in a shallow box and move them to a quail free place! Storage After harvest we grade our kumara. Our seed kumara for the next year is selected from the very best tubers that are a good size, unblemished and undamage.
These we wrap individually in newspaper, label and store in a box. We used to store our kumara in cardboard boxes but rodents are quick to learn and each year we experienced more and more damage as the rats would eat their way into the boxes. So a couple of years ago John made some storage boxes out of eco-ply untreated and no nasty glues and that is working a treat.
No kumara gap feels pretty special! The rest of the good sized, undamaged kumara is to be stored for eating later in the year. Plant out cuttings as soon as the threat of frosts have passed. Feed your plants and they will feed you. Select a fertiliser specially blended for your crop like Tui Vegetable Food.
Lift the foliage regularly. As the vines grow the stems naturally put down new roots where they touch the soil. If you lift the foliage this means the plant will put more energy in tuber growth rather than leaf growth.
Harvest once the leaves start to yellow usually in autumn if planted in spring. Cut back the foliage and then lift kumara carefully using a fork.
Leave them on the bed to cure in the sun for a couple of days. Cover them at night with a sack or newspaper.
0コメント