Your comments and tips

13 Oct 21, Renato (Australia - tropical climate)

What potato variety should I plant the early,mid or late variety and which is the best to plant in tropical climate?

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18 Sep 21, Mike Val. (Australia - temperate climate)

Query re coffee grounds - I have been composting for a few good years now, and I am fairly sure that if coffee grounds are left out on a plastic or concrete surface in sunlight for a month+ it will accelerate its breakdown and can be incorporated into the soil. If you are on good terms with a local cafeteria or coffee shop, their daily throw-out will astound you. Have incorporated this into my composting regime for some years now and grow some impressive veg. The trick is in the dry composting of the grounds before incorporating it into the larger composting mix. Give it a go !

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28 Sep 21, Anon (Australia - tropical climate)

I beg to differ. For anything to breakdown (to decompose) it needs air, water, carbon and nitrogen. Most things have a mix of carbon and nitrogen. Greens more nitrogen and dry things more carbon. You use grindings as a nitrogen source. By placing it out in the sun and drying I would think you are losing some of the nitrogen. It is like fresh manure would have more N than old manure. Placing grindings straight into soil is not recommended, it has to break down first. For good compost you need a big pile 1200-1500mm high, a good mix of N and C and for it to be watered and turned regularly. By doing this you create the heat to activate the bacteria etc to break the ingrediencies down. Compost is a great soil conditioner, it has very limited N P K.

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30 Aug 21, Bonnie Hawks (USA - Zone 6b climate)

Can this area plant. Potatoes/sweet potatoes in the fall?

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01 Sep 21, Melinda Schwab (USA - Zone 8a climate)

Sweet potato farmers here grow sprouts by “bedding” seed potatoes in March. This is done by placing the whole potato in the ground, covering them with a thin layer of soil and plastic. Sprouts will be cut and transplanted from the greenhouse or bedding field to a different field in May or June. It takes approximately 90-120 days without frost to grow a sweet potato. Sweet potatoes are ready to dig 90-120 days after sprouts are transplanted. Around here in August the rows are plowed and sweet potatoes are flipped on top of the ground. Most sweet potatoes are cured. Curing changes starches in the sweet potatoes into sugar, making it sweeter and the skin tougher. It takes 4-7 days of 80-85̊ temperature and 80-90% relative humidity to cure sweet potatoes. After being cured, sweet potatoes are stored at temperatures between 55-60º F and 85% relative humidity. This special storage process is why sweet potatoes are available 365 days a year here in USA. Here in North Carolina, USA sweet potatoes are shipped all over the world. It is one of our largest farmed food crops. I hope this helps... ~Melinda

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14 Dec 21, Celeste Archer (Canada - Zone 7b Mild Temperate climate)

Thank you - excellent information - especially about "bedding" the sweet seed potatoes and cutting the sprouts for transplant!!!

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07 Sep 21, Anon (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Where I live sub-tropical Australia we are becoming the sweet potato capital of Australia. The sprouts are called ?

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18 Oct 21, Peter Hurley (USA - Zone 4b climate)

Sweet potato sprouts are known as "slips". In the United States sweet potatoes tend to be the reddish type with orange flesh, a good variety is Georgia Jet, Australia may be more familiar with what we would call yams.

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01 Sep 21, (USA - Zone 6b climate)

April May if you had checked the planting guide here.

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22 Aug 21, Sue (New Zealand - cool/mountain climate)

When best to plant potatoes in Turangi - still pretty cold down here at moment - do I wait until September or maybe later?

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