Here I was thinking everyone grew sweet potatoes on their windowsills.
But the surprise that my weedy greeneries evoked in all friends passing through our kitchen this weekend made me realise that it's not, perhaps, a worldwide fad.
Shame. They're super cool! (And gosh that windowsill needs painting…)
I first grew sweet potato plants when I was sixteen and my music teacher at highschool lent me Laurel's Kitchen, as I had just pronounced myself vegetarian, and it was a marvellous book full of vegetarian recipes (and philosophies.) Gosh I loved that book. I thought about it recently as I was thinking about our meat-free month (still under consideration throughout the household) and it's sitting on my Amazon wishlist, waiting for a good excuse!
Anyway, they talked a bit about growing sweet potato on windowsills in Laurel's Kitchen. And so I often have, since. When a potato, or kumera, shoots because it's been sitting in my spud basket a bit long, it goes into a glass and onto the windowsill.
They start about this big:
And after they've sat on the kitchen windowsill for a bit and gotten in Adam's way while he washes up and he's cursed them (he calls them triffids) a minimum of eighty times, they go into the compost or the garden.
Like this:
Actually, this triffid was so close to being thrown to the worms after tickling Adam's nose one too many times, that I did a bit of a rush job and only half buried it! It's still growing strong, as you can see:
xxx