Last year I started the yacon April 8th. This year I'm starting it exactly one month earlier, March 8th. Will it make a difference in harvest date? Will it result in larger tubers in general? We shall see.
Since the yacon grew and produced well in the pallet grow boxes, I'm going that route again. I've refilled three boxes. I laid the tubers atop the fill, then topped the box off with coarse mulch.
Since some of the tubers were already starting to sprout before planting, it only took 4 days for them to pop up through the mulch. In the above photo you can see just how coarse the mulch is. I found that this works ok with yacon in grow boxes.
As time goes along, the material in the boxes will decompose and settle. The level will sink at least 50%. But that's ok. With yacon, the plant is tall and tends to flop over in the wind. So the sides of the grow box will give it some wind protection and support.
So to date, I have three boxes planted with yacon. I still have tubers left over. So I'm going to make 2-3 more boxes and plant the rest of the tuber starts. I'll plant them closer to April 8th so that I have a comparison between the two different start dates. It should be fun to see if there is a difference at the end.
I tried growing Yacon a few years ago but we had too much rain and the tubers rotted
ReplyDeleteI can concur that too much moisture can rot out the roots. I've had that problem during one of my wet years. Last year was real wet at my homestead, but I had grown the yacon in the pallet grow boxes.....just by dumb luck. The boxes drain very well and actually dry out compared to the regular ground. So I didn't see the rot I had thought might happen.
ReplyDeleteI'm going into a drought year, so I might have to be watering my yacon grow boxes this time around. Otherwise, I'm going to see what happens with yacon in a drought.