Glorious sweet potatoes

I was amazed to learn that the sweet potato belongs to the morning glory family. I have never seen any of the sweet potato plants in the vegetable garden flower. If I had, I would have no doubt about that. I saw a sweet potato flower on the internet. It reminded me immediately of the rampant morning glories in the gardens of my youth.

The sweet potato runners are as wild as their morning glory counterparts though. I have to trim them back into their bed at least twice in a season. They have no problem in growing into the vegetable beds alongside them. Where I cut the runners off above ground, the tubers travel under pathways, making their harvesting quite a challenge.

In the following season, I will find sweet potatoes coming up in the strangest spots in the vegetable garden. Our sweet potato harvest was much better than last year’s. The bed coped well with the number of runners I planted.

Harvesting sweet potatoes, like onions and garlic, is a full day event. Everything gets harvested and stored for use at a later stage. Unlike other vegetables that are harvested over longer periods, as one needs them. In the morning, the vegetable bed is still filled with plants. By lunch time, it is empty and being prepared for the next crop.

Each sweet potato is washed and graded into different baskets according to size. That will determine how they will be prepared as a side dish in future meals. I do not know which part of gardening is the best. From planning the seasonal planting, to preparing the beds, sowing the seeds, watching them grow and mature, or the harvesting. Each step holds its own excitement. To prepare a meal from what one has harvested, from one’s own garden, is such a uniquely special experience.

One’s appreciation of the food on one’s plate is completely different if one knows what went into its production. The Towerwater garden is a generous one. Where every bit of effort is rewarded tenfold.

With baskets of sweet potatoes stored on the loft, I have to find ways to include them in meals. Cooking the sweet potatoes fresh out of the ground is a luxury. It is a taste journey of the maturation and curing of the sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are a healthier option to standard potatoes. Standard potatoes tend to have more calories. Sweet potatoes are delicious when deep-fried, roasted or mashed, and they make the perfect side-dish for winter stews.

I don’t know if I regard the invasive morning glory differently knowing now that it is family of the sweet potato. Or, to regard the sweet potato differently, knowing that it is family of the morning glory. I suppose, like humans, vegetables cannot choose their family. The sweet potato might find it glorious to be related to the morning glory.