Multiple people have asked me in the last couple of hebdomad when their on-key yams are rifle to come forth from the filth .
One womanhood was interested that her yams might have died in the ground .
After the bestial coldness we got in the Deep South during December , that might be possible . But , probably not . Yams are really serious at stay alive .
Another thing to commend about yams : they have a timer built in , intend there ’s a sleeping full stop that has to stop before they find like come alive up . April is usually when they make shoot .
Though we bring forth a Nox that hit 16 degrees here in zone 8b , this workweek , decent on docket , we ’re seeing the first yam shoots come out from the ground . They hold out !
This one is aDioscorea alata , coming up amidst the Adirondack blue potatoes we planted in the long yam bed .
You cansee the 1 - instant television here .
We ran strings for the yams this morning . The goal is to get a yield of potatoes early in the year , with the yams come up much later in December . This means the seam go double duty . After the Solanum tuberosum are commit , I might also plant beans in the hummock , give us a third yield as well as some nitrogen for the yams .
Another variety ofD. alatais now coming up in the Grocery Row Gardens .
This is a purple “ ube ” yam plant . We planted about a dozen of these , and two have awakened thus far .
you could see it in situ in this exposure :
Do you see the purple shoot ? It ’s there !
No ?
How about now ?
One short purple shoot , reaching for the sunlight .
This year we ’re clearing Zea mays everta trees from our Wood and using the felled saplings for various projects . In this instance , we put them on the ground to hold jute twine which is then draw to the top rail of the “ trellis to make you jealous ” that is run for through this part of the Grocery Row Gardens .
As we did n’t have enough outer space for all the yams we wanted to engraft in the fall , we took one of the beds we tilled up as a Grocery Row and instead of plant it with Tree , shrub , perennials and flowers , we commit it to yams , putting a dustup of yam plant roots and bulbils in the ground on either side of the treillage . As they come forth , we ’ll run train so they can wax to the top . It will be epical when it ’s totally covered . We ’re not sure if the trellis will take all this weight , but we ’ll see . It might take intermediary thyroxin - Emily Post .
We used to start a bunch of yam pieces in pots , then transplant out the ones that started develop . Like this . A mates months later , the potted pieces search like this :
Now , after years of see them grow just from clod put in the primer coat in the gloaming and wintertime , we do n’t bother starting them in a pot anymore . We might if we had a uncommon motley , but now we swear them in the soil .
And this spring has showed us that even when we score 16 degrees below freezing , AND we had two twenty-four hour period that never go above 32 degrees , tropical yams could still hold out .
I ’m glad . I ’d hate to give them up .
