![]() Keep the soil plugs lightly watered, and the slips will thrive. I keep them in their little plastic shipping bags, rolled down to expose the upper leaves for aeration, sitting firmly in a ramekin in a morning-sunny window until I’m ready to plant. ![]() As soon as I get word that they’re ready to purchase, I pounce, no matter the date or weather forecast. ![]() I hit their Live Plants page early in March, and sign up for the back-in-stock notification. ![]() I purchase my slips from Baker Creek Seeds. This year (2021), mine arrived a full month before they’ll be planted, as we’re still having floods and the occasional overnight dip into the 30☏s here in March and April. This presents a challenge to the gardener: you either lock in your order as soon as you find them (whether you’re ready to plant or not), or you wait to order until the weather is perfect and risk everyone being out-of-stock.įor me, the decision is easy: I want my Okinawan sweet potatoes, lol, so I don’t take a chance. It’s important to note that sweet potato slips are not cold-weather hardy. You should remove the slips from the outer packaging immediately upon receipt, leaving the root plugs intact. The slips will arrive carefully packaged, usually with the roots encased in a soil plug. You can definitely grow your own slips from a sweet potato, but if you don’t have a sweet potato in your possession right now, you’ll need to go ahead and purchase the slips from a reputable nursery for this growing season. Note the roots extending from the leaf node. The shoots are removed from the potato once they leaf out, and then placed in water to develop roots. So, where do sweet potatoes come from anyway? Unlike most vegetables, sweet potatoes are not started from seed, but rather from mature shoots produced by the tubar, called slips. What are Sweet Potato Slips and Where to Buy Them? Okinawan Sweet Potatoes retain their color when cooked and, in fact, deepen into a rich, dark purple, while the skins tend to take on the purple coloring. They cook up fairly quickly in a pressure cooker, and my favorite work-from-home vegetarian lunch is one topped with black beans, salsa, and guacamole. Nutty and slightly earthy, they not only make excellent crispy fries, but are also quite lovely in salads (I’m an add-all-the-vegetables kind of green salad fan). Taste is subjective, of course, but I find them far less cloyingly sweet than the standard orange grocery store variety (often, Beauregard). The interior of the Okinawan Sweet Potato is just beautiful: magenta throughout. They are, unfortunately, difficult to find in the typical American grocery store, which is a shame because they’re so delicious and are my very favorite variety of sweet potato. They were, in fact, a dietary staple of the people in the famous Okinawa Blue Zone (an area designated as having a high number of centenarians). They’re starchy – more so than their orange-fleshed counterparts – but have no saturated fats or cholesterol. Okinawan Sweet Potatoes – a.k.a., Okinawan Purple Sweet Potatoes or Hawaiian Purple Sweet Potatoes – are a beautiful cultivar, featuring off-white or beige skin with a vibrant purple-pink interior. Two freshly harvested Okinawan Sweet Potatoes What is an Okinawan Sweet Potato? What does it taste like?ĭespite the geographic name famous for cultivating them, they’re also commonly grown in Hawaii and are often known as the Hawaiian Sweet Potato. ![]() These sweet potatoes are easy for the backyard gardener to grow in the U.S. Full of the antioxidant anthocyanin, they’re also high polyphenols, vitamin C, and soluble fiber. Okinawan Purple Sweet Potatoes are a lovely and delicious cultivar, featuring a creamy, beige skin encasing gorgeous purple-magenta flesh. ![]()
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