Sweet Taters

March 18:

When I was growing up, I remember the ladies used to sprout Sweet Potatoes. In my active childhood mind, I just noted it was sometime after Christmas. The ladies would carefully pick out Sweet Potatoes with baby sprouts on top and then place them in jars of water. As the winter season went on, you would see the Sweet Potatoes (and later just the magical vines) with their beautiful foliage trailing down window sills with the stark contrast of winter into spring outside.

Since I still hold that childhood fascination of Sweet Potatoes plus we love eating them, I knew I had to sprout some myself this year. I asked my sister-in-law Deleta and a long time family friend Ilene about their tricks of the trade. I soaked up all the information I could hear.

I began to sprout Sweet Potatoes February 20-24. (Ilene starts after February 19th.) As the sprouts grew and the vines flourished, I have been pulling them off and placing them in their own jars of water on the kitchen window sill. I kept looking for roots. On Sunday, I noticed no roots. On Monday morning, the roots were springing from the stems into the water.

As a child, I wasn't sure how the Sweet Potato does these things. As an adult, I still wonder how.