Yams

Yams are not unlike Sweet Potatoes in their looks and uses, but grow completely differently and are also propagated differently. The Yam is a vigorous climber and can produce foliage up to 10ft long that will need supporting with canes as you might runner beans. Propagation is from very small tubercles or from small tubers, both of which are best started off early in the season in the warmth, in pots, to extend the growing time. As with Sweet Potatoes they must not be planted outside until all fear of frost has finished and even then need the mildest parts of the UK and a very, long, hot summer to develop successfully.

Like Sweet Potatoes, Yams need a fertile well-drained soil and prefer full sun as well as being kept well watered and fed regularly. Again like Sweet Potatoes they can be harvested in the Autumn, when the plants have started to die down.

Generally speaking, plants grown from tubercles will produce smaller harvestable tubers than those grown from actual tubers. Tubercles are like small bulbs, but unlike bulbs they are formed in late summer in the leaf axils of maturing plants. Other flowering plants such as Liliums often do this and if the tubercles are carefully removed, they can be stored in a cool, frost-free place over the winter and potted, into individual pots in early spring to start into growth, as free young plants for the new growing season.

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