The Garden Thyme Podcast

S4:E04 Sweet Potatoes with Jon Traunfeld

• Garden Thyme Podcast • Season 4 • Episode 4

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 Hey Listener,

 In this month's episode, we are excited to welcome back  Jon Traunfeld, Principal Agent and Program Director of the fantastic UME Home and Garden Information Center. 2023 is UME HGIC year of the Sweet Potato, and  Jon is here .o give us some tips about growing and harvesting them, and in return, we share recipes for eating them with him.

We also have our: 

We currently have an open survey for ALL listeners; whether you’ve listened to all of our episodes, or this is your first time. We developed an evaluation to find out if the information we share on the podcast has made a difference in your practices at home. We promise that it is a short, easy 5 min survey, and we even have exclusive podcast stickers to give to those who participate. We are so thankful for the feedback, and we appreciate you tuning in for the podcast! 

You can take our survey here. 

 If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at UMEGardenPodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GardenThymePodcas. For more information about UME and these topics, please check out the UME Home and Garden Information Center and Maryland Grows Blog at https://marylandgrows.umd.edu/. 

 The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Senior Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture, Rachel Rhodes- Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County), and Emily Zobel-Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

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We currently have an open survey for ALL listeners. Whether you’ve listened to all of our episodes, or this is your first time. We developed an evaluation to determine if the information we share on the podcast has made a difference in your practices at home. We promise that it is a short, easy 5-minute survey, and we even have exclusive podcast stickers to give to those who participate. We are so thankful for the feedback, and we appreciate you tuning in for the podcast!

You can take our survey here.

The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Principal Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture; Rachel Rhodes- Senior Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County); and Emily Zobel- Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

Theme Song: By Jason Inc,

University programs, activities, and facilities are available to all without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, national origin, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, religion, protected veteran status, genetic information, personal appearance, or any other legally protected class.

Note: The Garden Thyme Podcast is produced for the ear and is designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.  

  

:Up beat music:


 


Mikaela

Hello, listener. Welcome to the University of Maryland Extension presents the Garden Time Podcast, where we talk about getting down dirty in your garden. We're your hosts. I'm Mikaela.

 


Rachel

I'm Rachel.

 


Emily

And I'm Emily.

 


Mikaela

And in this month's episode, we have a special guest coming on to talk about the amazing and tasty sweet potato.

 


 

UP Beat Music

 


Mikaela

So on today's episode, we are welcoming Jon Traunfeld, our extension specialist in vegetable and fruit production for the home garden. And he is going to be answering some of our really critical questions about sweet potatoes. Because we don't know if you know, but 2023 is the year of the sweet potatoes. So if you haven't grown them before, now is going to be the time. And you're going to have all the information from John today to be able to do that. Thank you so much for coming on today.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Oh, you're quite welcome. I'm very excited to be here. Number one, to be with the Garden Time podcast crew for the second time. Thanks for the invite.

 


Mikaela

We love having you.

 


Rachel

Yeah.

 


Jon Traunfeld

And as Mikaela mentioned, 2023 is the year of the sweet potato for the, UME, Master Gardener Grow It, Eat It program. So we want lots of people to try sweet potatoes. It's something that I think a lot of gardeners haven't experienced because maybe they think it's a Southern crop. It'll take up too much space. But you really can get a lot of food in a relatively small space with sweet potatoes.

 


Mikaela

Well, I'm excited because when you released some information a couple of months back about this being the year of the sweet potato, I went out right away and I bought some flips. So I'm pretty excited to get those in the ground.

 


Emily

I got some as well. Mine are not going to be here for another few weeks, but I'm very excited. I have an old turtle sandbox that I go back and forth between doing potatoes or sweet potatoes in because it's really easy to just dump it out afterwards to harvest rather than having to dig in the real ground. So I think sweet potatoes are ones that I really love, doing them in containers because it makes them super easy to harvest. But you have to make sure you get the big enough container for them.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Absolutely. You got to send me a picture, Emily, of sweet potatoes in the waiting pool.

 


Rachel

An awesome idea, Emily.

 


Mikaela

So, Rachel, do you have some sweet potato fun facts for us?

 


Rachel

You know, when we first initially asked John to do this, I went down the sweet potato rabbit hole because lord, because that's just how my brain works. So I did find a couple of fun facts about sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes can be white, yellow, red, purple, or orange, which I mean, I knew that they could be white or like, orange, but I haven't seen a purple or red one. So that is in my to do list. Now, to find a purple sweet potato. And the orange flesh sweet potatoes are sweeter than the other varieties. And here's another great nutrition fact about sweet potatoes. You would have to eat 23 cups of broccoli to take in the same amount of vitamin A that is in one sweet potato.

 


Mikaela

Wow.

 


Rachel

I know.

 


Mikaela

It's impressive.

 


Rachel

So here I am worried about my kids eating broccoli when I should just give them one sweet potato. At least sweet potatoes I can make into tasty French fries. Broccoli I have to coat with cheese.

 


Mikaela

Or make into a wonderful pie or there's so many ways may we count the ways that may we count enrich our lives?

 


Rachel

All right, so this is another really interesting, fun fact, and it's from NPR, National Public Radio. They did a story in 2013 called The Sweet Potato crossed the Pacific way before the Europeans did. And they analyzed about 1200 sweet potato varieties from Asia and the Americas. And researchers found that this wonderful root vegetable made it all the way to Polynesia from the Andes. So originally they thought that the sweet potato originated in Polynesia, but no Surrey. And we can link the article in our show notes as well. It's a really cool article to read.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, I think that's one of the big botanical mysteries, and maybe it's getting closer to being solved. How did that plant? It seems like it could it have coevolved in South America in Polynesia? Or how did it travel from the center of origin to the other place? So it is kind of interesting.

 


Rachel

Yeah. I mean, just thinking about the Andes and then Polynesia and how did it make its way from the Andes all the way across the ocean to Polynesia? Like, what was the mechanism of travel?

 


Mikaela

Interesting. Well, and that kind of launches us into some of the questions that we have for John today. And one of the first ones we ask is, what is a sweet potato and is it different than, like, a yam, or are they the same thing?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Sure, yeah. Sweet potatoes and yams are in completely separate families. Sweet potato is in the morning glory family Convolve, Valencia. And yams are in the genus Diascoria. So completely different. Yams are darker and have a rougher skin. They're pretty starchy. There are quite a few different species, and they tend to grow rather long. They can be two to 5ft long, mostly grown in African countries today, at least commercially, but also in Latin America and the Caribbean.

 


Emily

Okay, that kind of blew my mind. I just did some jams were a variety that weren't as sweet.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, I don't know. It is interesting. It seems that people started calling orange flesh sweet potatoes yams in the US. And then in the south, they're mostly known as yams. And you'd see canned yams, but they would be actually canned sweet potatoes. So it's just one of those things that happens, and it really doesn't matter to the eater, but botanically they're different.

 


Rachel

If you look on the can that says canned Yance, it actually says contain.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Sweet potatoes just to avoid confusion.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Well, like canned pumpkin. Isn't it usually some type of winter squash in the can and not actually pumpkin?

 


Mikaela

They have to say 100% pumpkin or something. I didn't realize you could substitute for that. But you're right. And just another example of why we encourage people to use scientific or botanical terms, because it's very confusing when you use common terms and sometimes they get misconstrued very easily. So you don't want to be switching up your yams and sweet potatoes.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, you bet.

 


Rachel

So John, do you have a favorite variety of sweet potato that you like to grow?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yes, I like the Japanese sweet potatoes, and I think they're sometimes also called Korean sweet potatoes in Asian food markets. And I think there are a couple of different types. The one I really like has a purple skin and kind of a dull yellowish flesh, and they are fairly large in size and they have a drier texture. And I think a much more complex flavor, kind of a nutty flavor compared to a lot of the common varieties that we grow in gardens in the US. So I really enjoy those. Like when you bake them in the oven, instead of leaking a lot of liquid that can then get on your elements in your oven, they just stay much more firm. And I also find they store for longer period of time than other varieties. So I really like them and I've been growing them now for about ten years. And I propagate my own plants from last year's harvest.

 


Emily

Wow, that's great.

 


Mikaela

I think those are one of the varieties I ordered as well. So I'm curious to see how it compares. Would you say like, maybe the other types, not the Japanese one, might be suited for pies because those tend to be more moist? Or could you really get into it?

 


Jon Traunfeld

It's really funny. In my house, people don't like the color, that flesh color because it can look a little like a washed out tannish color. It's not a pretty yellow. So just in terms of visual aesthetics, it's not as pleasing to some people, but the flavor is outstanding and it's maybe just a little bit less sweet, but not by much. So I just think in terms of texture and flavor, in my view it's really superior. I just really think it's a great varieties to try. And I know there's one called Mirasaki that's actually also purple skinned and it has white flesh, but it's not from Japan or Korea. It was developed by LSU Experiment Station folks. So it was developed in the US. And apparently it's grown widely in California because that's one you do see in the supermarket now more and more, that really pretty purple skinned, white fleshed variety, and that's Mirasaki. And you can buy those slips. As a gardener from lots of different.

 


Rachel

Places, I'm excited now to just try a couple of different varieties.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Sure.

 


Mikaela

Yeah. When is the best time to start your slips or to plant your sweet potatoes?

 


Jon Traunfeld

So planting, after all, chance of frost is over. They're very cold sensitive, so probably late may really at the earliest. Maybe on the shore you could go a little bit earlier, but watch that ten day forecast. You just don't want them to get hit by temps even in the mid 30s. So sort of like okra and basil in that respect. And if you're starting your own, it's not really too late. I feel like it usually takes me about six weeks, maybe a little less, to get good sweet potato slips from taking one root, cutting it in half, and laying the cut sides down in a shallow container with a little bit of potty mix on the bottom and cover them with potty mix and keep them in a warm spot. And then in about ten days, little sprouts will start to pop up and you can keep them under like a fluorescent light or LED light and you can just grow lots of baby plants that way. And we have a video on our website how to do that.

 


Jon Traunfeld

No, in fact, especially in temperate parts of the world, sweet potatoes don't flower very freely. I mean, it depends a lot on the variety and growing conditions. So you may see some of the really pretty trumpet shaped flowers. They've got a white corolla and a purple throat. Usually they're super attractive, you'll think you're looking at morning glories, but they don't flower very frequently and they typically don't produce much seed at all. And the plants are usually incompatible or they're pollen incompatible. So it's actually kind of hard to grow sweet potatoes by seed, and only breeders really use seeds for that purpose.

 


Mikaela

Is that how they introduce those different genetics and varieties then, is they do go through the effort of doing them from seed. There's no way to do it vegetative.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, absolutely. No, they actually breed in different traits. LSU actually they've been probably the leader for a long time. North Carolina produces, I think, half of the country sweet potatoes and they have a breeding program as well. So those two states are usually the ones plus USDA that will release new varieties.

 


Emily

Very cool.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah. And apparently if you do trellis them, which is a great way to save space with sweet potatoes, they will flower more. If they're growing up, they need more space.

 


Emily

I'd never thought to trellis them up though. I'd always just had to do the thing like every week where I'd have to pick them up and throw them back on the raised bed to go around them and was like, okay, well, they'll just spread back out again.

 


Jon Traunfeld

That's funny. And it brings up a good point, which is you can manipulate the vines. I mean, you can trim them to keep them within bounds because they will grow. They're indeterminate, mostly. Let's back up. Some do have a bush habit, like bush Puerto Rico and vardamine. So they'll have shorter vines. But most of the sweet potatoes people might grow are going to have fairly long vines. Like, they'll grow 5 to 8ft long. You can trim them and you can move them around. I have to do that in my garden, and it's not a big deal. It doesn't hurt the plant. They also will put out roots at their nodes along the stem, so you'll find them rooting, but they're not strongly rooted. You can just pick them up and rip the roots up. And again, it doesn't really hurt the plants.

 


Rachel

Now, John, can I trellis them on a chain link fence?

 


Jon Traunfeld

I haven't seen that, but I don't know why not. I mean, you have to help them along in terms of getting them going to get the tendrils to wrap around. But I think that would be pretty cool. And if it works, send a picture. I'd love to see that on a chain.

 


Emily

That would be pretty.

 


Mikaela

You mentioned cutting back some of the vines. Does that affect the growth of the root at all? Like, does that affect your productivity?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Theoretically it should, but I think the vines can be so rampant that whatever reduction in root growth, it wouldn't be a huge amount. If you're cutting, say, you take off 20% of the vine, I don't think that would have a big effect on the ultimate yield. And the other cool thing, and I didn't learn this until I moved to Baltimore from Tennessee, where there are lots of sweet potatoes grown, but I never heard about anybody eating the young leaves and shoots of sweet potato plants. And then I went to the farmers market in Baltimore City my first year there, and I'm seeing bags of sweet potato leaves. And so it's hugely popular in lots of countries around the world, but people don't do it in the US. I think they're starting to catch on, though. And apparently the foliage is as nutritious, I'm told, as spinach. So it's comfortable in nutrition. You can just saute it and add it to all kinds of things. So it does double duty that way.

 


Mikaela

It sounds like a powerhouse plant.

 


Rachel

It does, yeah.

 


Mikaela

So we have some other cultural questions in terms of how to care for sweet potatoes. One of them is, how much water do sweet potato potatoes need? Because I know, like, when you grow melons or anything like that pumpkins, they are heavy water requirements. Are sweet potatoes the same way?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Apparently once they get past about the 60 day point, they've been in the ground for 60 days. You don't have to worry about water as much unless we hit a really serious drought. And then if you don't water, it could mean smaller roots or fewer roots that you would be able to harvest. But certainly for the first couple of months that they're in the ground, if we hit dry periods, they should certainly be watered.

 


Emily

Okay.

 


Mikaela

So probably not any more or less than other vegetables in the ground.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, they're considered pretty drought tolerant once they're mature. And part of it is they have a pretty robust root system, and the roots can go down several feet. I mean, most of the roots are in the top foot of soil, but it's got a pretty heavy duty root system. I think if you have soil that's got a pretty high organic matter content, then you can kind of ignore them. Unless, again, we had a really serious drought late summer.

 


Mikaela

I would assume that it would be difficult for people with heavy soils or heavy clay soils to grow them in ground. Most people might do raised beds or containers, maybe.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah. When I took vegetable crop classes, we learned sweet potatoes grow best in lighter soils, in sandier soils. And I think that's partly due to the fact that if the soil is very heavy and really doesn't drain well, then they do very poorly. They will not grow well. They won't produce well. But I have an upland silty clay loam soil in my garden. It's had a lot of organic matter added to it and sweet potatoes grow fine. So as long as the soil drains, even if it's somewhat high in clay, as long as it has a lot of organic matter, I wouldn't worry too much. I wouldn't think, oh, I can't grow sweet potatoes in my garden because there's too much clay in the soil.

 


Mikaela

Oh, okay, good. And I know there is an organic farmer kind of near where I live, and she grows a lot of varieties of sweet potato, and I don't think she does it in raised beds. So she either has seriously amended soils or her property drained as well. So that's good to know.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah. But they do grow well in containers. I haven't tried it myself. We had Master Gardener's in Charles County growing them in laundry baskets, which was pretty cool. They're ventilated. They lined it with newspaper. I don't know if they just had one or two plants in there, but they got a pretty decent harvest. I think it was seven or eight pounds from that one laundry basket. And I see all kinds of stuff online about container sweet potatoes. I haven't seen any research data on that, but I think you'd be safe with planting one plant in, say, a ten gallon size container. I would try that and see how that works.

 


Emily

I did one plant in a five gallon bucket last year, and I think I did, like, three or four buckets, and I got about four-five pounds per bucket, because, again, they're a little bit more strict because it's a smaller space. 

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, but that's pretty good.

 


Emily

Yeah.

 


Rachel

So if I'm going to put them in a container, what kind of soil should I be using?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Definitely not garden soil. Don't put any mineral soil from the garden. So I would say a good mixture would be a nice potting mix mixed with compost. So 50 50 compost and some decent quality potting soil would work well.

 


Mikaela

Do you recommend mixing any, like a 50/50? 

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah. By volume, like half or 50% of each of those. I mean, you could go 100% potting mix. I haven't seen people do 100% compost, but it could work. I think if you just make sure you water it and provide enough fertilizer, that might be fine. It'll dry out faster. 100% compost versus mixing it with something that has either coconut core or peat moss in it, it'll dry out a little faster. But yeah, I would say just experiment, try different things, but definitely no mineral soil. It'll just be too dense.

 


Mikaela

So do sweet potatoes have any pests or disease that people should be aware of?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Thankfully relatively few compared to other crops we would grow in the garden. I would say actually, one of the biggest problems people report are voles or meadow mice. And that can be really tough if they're getting into a raised bed, because they're just feeding unnoticed underground. And you don't really understand what's happening until you dig up your plants. And I've seen people build or sort of tack on hardware cloths to the inside of their raised beds and maybe have that form the bottom of the raised bed, like quarter inch or half inch hardware cloth to keep the voles from getting to the plants. That's pretty elaborate. And that could get a little bit expensive. And at that point, maybe you'd want to try containers if bowls are really a problem. Other than that, sometimes wireworms will get to them. Other soil insects, like fleet beetle larvae, can feed on them a little bit every now and again. We'll see this kind of a superficial fungal disease called scurf that just affects the skin of the sweet potatoes and doesn't make them inedible. So, I mean, really, compared to everything else we grow, they don't have a lot of problems.

 


Emily

That is good to know. Maintenance.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah. But I will say deer and groundhogs love sweet potato plants. They will just eat them down to the ground. And I've seen groundhogs in a garden that has sweet potatoes and lots of other crops. It's like they went for the sweet potatoes, like they knew there was high nutrition in those leaves.

 


Emily

There we go. That's an even better reason to try the leaves this year.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah. Got to have a fence, man.

 


Rachel

I have a groundhog in my yard. Yeah. And rabbits and lots of deer. The groundhogs made herself a home yeah.

 


Emily

So maybe your solution is just to plant some sweet potatoes and then she'll leave the rest of your garden alone.

 


Mikaela

A ground hog trap crop. 

 


Rachel

I'm hoping the screaming children will just scare her away. Like, this isn't a place I should be.

 


Emily

Nah, she has her own screaming children. Yours aren't going to scare her.

 


Mikaela

So let's say you've gotten through the season. You're successfully looking at lots of sweet potato vines, but because everything's underground, how do you know when they're ready to harvest?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, well, I'll tell you even before then. Here's a good tip that I learned the hard way, and that is to mark where your plants are, because once the vines run like crazy and then you want to harvest, it can be hard to find the base of the plant, because that's where the storage roots are going to be. So I put little flags up in the ground where I have each plant. So when do you know when to harvest? The thing about sweet potatoes is they continue to enlarge, and that can be a problem if you forget about them. And we had a little demo garden here at the research farm, and we let the sweet potatoes go until early October, and we dug up some enormous, cracked, deformed sweet potatoes because they just kept growing. Kept growing. So what I would say is check the maturity date for the variety you're growing. Most of them are between 85 and 110 days. And so when you get to, like if it's an 85 day variety, you get to day 75 or 80. You might want to start looking. So digging gently in the soil to feel how big those storage roots are.

 


Jon Traunfeld

And I think that's a really good way to determine when to harvest. You don't want them to go too long.

 


Emily

That's the mistake I feel like I've always made, is I've just waited for that first frost to kill the vines back, and that's when I'm like, oh, it's a sunny day in the fall. Let's dump out all the potato containers and harvest.

 


Mikaela

Will they get kind of woody?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, they can. The store flavors can get woody and really not so they'll crack, they get woody and really become unusable. And apparently I haven't really seen this, but I understand just from reading about sweet potatoes, if you let frost hit them, that cold damage can go down into the roots. So it's important watch for the frost dates and get them in before the first frost.

 


Emily

Good to know. I have made many sweet potato growing mistakes.

 


Mikaela

We love learning from others mistakes.

 


Rachel

Yes, we do.

 


Mikaela

How many sweet potatoes or I don't know, you may just have to say this in pounds, how many sweet potatoes would you get from one plant?

 


Jon Traunfeld

I would say on average, and this depends so much, of course, on the soil and growing conditions, but you should get somewhere between four and eight roots that enlarge, and you could get four to five pounds per plant. With that Korean sweet potato I grow in a good year, I can get seven to ten pounds per plant because they just make big roots and they're just really good that way. But it'll depend, but that would be an average.

 


Rachel

Okay, so, John, I've harvested my sweet potatoes, and then what do I do with them afterwards?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yes. I think this is another thing that scares people. If they read about sweet potatoes, they read about curing, which is what commercial growers do. They actually move the harvest to these special storage facilities where the temperature is held at about 85 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity is up around 90%, and they sit there for a week or more. And so that helps to heal any wounds on the roots, and it helps that conversion process of starch to sugar, we can't really replicate that at home. I think the best you can do is keep them out on a porch. If you have a porch or a covered patio outside, if the weather is still humid and warm, that's good to do that for a week or so, and it does help to heal the wounds. If you can't do that, you will still have good sweet potatoes. And one of the keys is, when you harvest, don't rub them hard, certainly don't wash them. Don't try to clean them up too much. Just knock off any dirt clods. But leave them kind of dirty when you either cure them or store them. So if you can't cure them, you can just take them right to your basement.

 


Jon Traunfeld

If you have a basement, that's a good place for sweet potatoes to be stored, and you keep them in kind of either a wood crate or a plastic crate or a cardboard box. You want it to be ventilated. You can line the container with newspaper and just keep them in your basement. And again, the drier Korean and Japanese sweet potatoes. I've actually had some go for two years, if you can believe it, in my basement without sprouting. So they're phenomenal that way. But other varieties should last all the way through the winter without sprouting. If they get exposed to temperatures above 70 degrees, they're going to sprout pretty readily.

 


Rachel

That's really good to know.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah. So the curing is great, but if you can't do it, don't worry. Just put them in the basement and they should be okay. Don't stack them real deeply. Maybe only two or three deep if you can. That'll help to avoid issues with rotting.

 


Mikaela

And you don't store them in, like, sawdust or anything?

 


Jon Traunfeld

No.

 


Mikaela

Yeah.

 


Emily

Okay. So, Rachel, do you want to take the last question? I feel like this is right up your alley.

 


Rachel

Because I like to eating. I love to cook. So, John, what is your favorite sweet potato recipe?

 


Jon Traunfeld

If I had to pick one, it would be sweet potato pie. I really love that, and I make it a couple of times a year. I also really like oven fries with sweet potatoes. Just cutting them lengthwise, oil, salt, and pepper, put them in the oven, and that's really great. And just baking them in the oven and then putting a little bit of butter, salt, and pepper on them can't beat the sweet potato casseroles. There are a million recipes with the pecans on top that are a little bit sweet, but they're delicious, so just lots of ways. And I'm interested in learning more about how other cultures are using sweet potatoes, like frying stems, and I want to do more with the foliage. I haven't done much yet. Saute them a couple of times, but I want to make better use of that.

 


Rachel

Yeah.

 


Mikaela

There's a recipe I really like. It's like an African peanut stew. And while I use sweet potatoes, I'm wondering if, like, an original recipe would have used yams instead. And for greens, they use spinach, but I think maybe you could even substitute the sweet potato greens for the spinach in that, so I might have to try that.

 


Emily

I think you're going to need to share that recipe, Mikaela.

 


Mikaela

It's really good. One of my favorites.

 


Emily

So I have a favorite one that's like roasted sweet potatoes, but then you roast, like, apples, and then you put it in a cinnamon sauce so it's not overly sweet. You get the sweetness from the apples and the earthiness from the sweet potato. And my coworker will make it with some nuts in it as well to give it a little bit of crunch and some celery.

 


Rachel

That sounds really good.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, that sounds good.

 


Mikaela

Yeah. We're going to have to post all of our favorite recipes in the show notes, obviously.

 


Emily

I think what we have to do is have a grow and eat it potluck featuring sweet potato potluck.

 


Mikaela

A Sweet potato potluck.

 


Rachel

That is a great fall meeting idea, John.

 


Jon Traunfeld

It will be, yeah, like that.

 


Mikaela

Rachel's hosting

 


Jon Traunfeld

Good. Invite me, please.

 


Emily

We will do it.

 


Mikaela

Sweet potato cook off will come. Like, bring your favorite sweet potato recipe.

 


Rachel

All right. I have two favorite sweet potato recipe. Three. Sorry? Three. Like, John, I love the sweet potato fry baked in the oven. I've done it in my air fryer, too. It works really well, but I make it a little bit more savory. I add some paprika or garlic powder with avocado oil. And then I do, like, a warm potato salad with roasted sweet potatoes and roasted Yukon golds with, like, a Dijon dressing. It's really, really good.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Oh, wow.

 


Rachel

And then I do a kale and quinoa salad, and it didn't call for roasted sweet potatoes, but I've started adding roasted sweet potatoes, and I make it at least a couple of times a month now because I love it so much.

 


Emily

I feel like come. Fall time roasting sweet potatoes and just adding them to anything fall related, it just adds to them because they're so nutritional and they have a nice flavor to it that's like earthy, but it's not something that's going to overpower everyone else. They can work good alone, but they can also be a good accent piece with stronger flavors. Another wonderful reason to grow sweet potatoes and eat sweet potatoes.

 


Rachel

And remember, 23 cups of broccoli equals one sweet potato for vitamin A. So you're getting your bang for your buck.

 


Jon Traunfeld

That's right.

 


Mikaela

Any other comments, John, that you think would be helpful for people trying out?

 


Jon Traunfeld

I would say just you can find slips locally. Check your farm and garden stores, other garden centers. Ask around. If you can't find them locally, then you can order them online from different companies around the country, really, that have sweet potato slips. But again, it's not too late to start your own. I'd also mention University of Maryland Extension Master Gardener Learning Garden at Maryland State Fair has been featuring sweet potatoes the last few years. And because this is the year of sweet potatoes, they're going to be growing several different varieties, including the haman variety, which is an Eastern Shore heirloom. It's a white sweet potato. They'll grow them in containers and on trellises. So for folks going to the State fair this year, you definitely need to check out the Learning Garden. It's right next to the four H building.

 


Rachel

Wow.

 


Mikaela

Excellent.

 


Rachel

That is pretty excellent. I didn't know there was an Eastern Shore heirloom variety, and now I have to find it.

 


Emily

Awesome. So if you want to hear more of John's soothing voice about vegetable crops, you can go back and check our August episode from 2020, where he talked about fall vegetable gardening. And if anyone has gardening questions, John, where should they go to learn more about not only sweet potatoes, but vegetable gardening in general?

 


Jon Traunfeld

Sure. Your county extension office. Of course. You can take your questions there to plant clinics run by Master Gardeners. And you can also send your questions through the University of Maryland extension web pages. There's a button at the top of each page that says Ask Extension. On the Home and Garden Information Center web page. It's a big button that says Ask Extension. And when you click that button, you can submit a question 24/7. We'll answer it within 48 hours. You can attach up to three photos, and that's really helpful when you have gardening questions or problems.

 


Mikaela

Thank you so much for coming on today. We always appreciate your expertise.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Well, thank you for inviting me. It's lovely to be here with you three. I miss seeing you all this growing season.

 


Emily

We miss you too, John.

 


Rachel

Thank you, John.

 


Jon Traunfeld

Yeah, you're welcome. It's great to see you all.

 


Mikaela

I sure can.

 


Emily

Awesome.

 


 

:Music: It's the Native Plant of the Month with Mikaela: 

 


Mikaela

So it will come as no surprise to you guys, I had completely written up something for a different plant and I changed my mind. So this morning there was like, nothing there. I'm like, I need to have my other plant ready. So anyways, native plant of the month for May, I've decided to go with mountain laurel, which Kalmia latifolia is the scientific name. So mountain laurel might be one of the most striking shrubs in the wilds, and it is often used as an ornamental plant in the landscape or in certain landscapes, I should say. So this is a broad, leaf evergreen shrub that blooms clusters of white, kind of like origami bell shaped flowers with hints of reddish pink in May. And there's different degrees that you'll see the pink coloring, but usually they are white with, like a pink or red kind of ring in the middle of the flower. Mountain laurel can be really attractive in the winter as well. They have very glossy leaves, and even the branches are very structural. The bark is kind of nice. It exfoliates a little bit in strips. It's just a really nice looking plant.

 


Mikaela

So while it can get tall, this is a slow growing shrub, so it can reach anywhere from like 5ft to 18ft tall, depending on the right growing conditions. You'll obviously have a lot bigger plant, and they're very long lived plants as well. They tend to last for quite a long time. I think they've even documented some mountain laurels as reaching, like, 100 years old. So if they don't succumb to something in the meantime so you're not going to find this shrub growing in heavy clay soils, but it does tolerate rocky soils of the mountainous region as well as the sandier soils. So good news for, like, Caroline County and a lot of the Lower Eastern Shore counties. This would be difficult to incorporate into a cultivated landscape unless you have the desirable conditions present to accommodate its growth in the best way. So I've seen it happiest in the foothills of the mountains and along the sandy banks of the Tuckahoe Creek at Atkins Arboretum. So if you have a chance, go check it out. And mountain laurel is also very attractive to bees, songbirds, and small mammals. They even have a unique pollination technique with spring loaded stamens that are triggered by visitors that actually catapult pollen at the offender. And this is done to kind of fling pollen at the visiting body in an effort for it to stick to the insect. I know. Isn't that crazy?

 


Emily

It flings pollen that's nuts!

 


Mikaela

Yeah.

 


Emily

Cool.

 


Mikaela

So if you look at a picture of the flower and I'll try and include it in our post, there's like, little indentations on the back of the flower. And those indentations, actually, you can track it. The stamens are held in place to the side of the flower from those indentations. And when the pollen is ready, when it's ready to go and a bee or whatever visitor comes near and disturbs those stamens, they're released and they fling. So it's kind of rude to visitors just throwing pollen at them really aggressively.

 


Emily

Very rude gets some manners.

 


Mikaela

Exactly. But it must be worth it because the insect continues foraging along the flowers, so they must not be completely offended by it. But I think that's rather rude. Now, I've been trying all morning to find a good video on YouTube of this particular practice and I have not found a good one yet. I did find a video where they examined the flower and it had a really good shot of the stamens being held back, but the flower wasn't ready, so it didn't fling any of its pollen. Yeah, I know.

 


Rachel

What kind of people are we that we are looking up videos of plants flinging pollen?

 


Mikaela

I feel like a class A nerd this morning.

 


Emily

We are amazing. Listen, we are surrounded by, like, people. It is fine. This is a safe nerd plant podcast.

 


Mikaela

I got to tell you. I might even go through the effort of when it's time, like when the flowers are ready. I'm going to go stand near Mountain Laurel and I'm going to watch.

 


Rachel

I think this is a great field trip idea.

 


Mikaela

I think so, yeah. So I'm going to stake out Atkins Arborino. I'm just going to stand there very ominously and watch.

 


Emily

I mean, I'm always up for a trip there. I've only been once. That is an awesome native plants a month. Yeah. We're going to have to make a field trip and see the swinging pollen.

 


 

:Music It's the Bug of the Month with Emily:

 


Emily

So my bug of the month is very on brand for this episode. And I had some other bugs in mind because May is a very good season for bugs. But I sort of wanted to talk about this one because we're already talking about sweet potatoes and we are familiar with hornworms, but we're not necessarily familiar with all the varieties and species of hornworms that are out there. So you have probably come across the tomato or the tobacco hornworm feeding on your tomato plants during the summertime. This is the big green one that's got the little pink horn on its butt. It also produces square poop, so you oftentimes will see the fecal matter before the caterpillar. But a lot of people may not realize that that is not the only type of hornworm or hawk moth that we have. The one I'm going to talk about today is the pink spotted hawk moth, also known as the sweet potato hornworm, and the scientific name is Agrius cingulata.

 


Emily

So this is a tropical or neotropical species, but the adults do tend to migrate up north during the summer and they can be found along the east coastline and across the Mississippi. You occasionally find them out in California as well, but you'll find them as far as, like, the northern states into southern Canada, depending on the fluctuation of the seasons. They have also been reported in Western Europe, Portugal and the United Kingdoms as well as they've recently been found in West Africa. The moth itself is nocturnal, and it feeds on the nectars of the trumpet type flowers. So this would include things like moonflowers, morning glories, and petunias. The larvae stage is a large, stout caterpillar that has that iconic horn at the end of its abdomen. It feeds during the day and during the night, and it can feed on things like sweet potatoes, morning glories, moonflower, double weed, hell's bowels. So all the plants that are in that same family that the sweet potato is found in. Now, why the larvae is known to feed on sweet potatoes. It's very uncommon for it to feed enough to become what we would consider a pest or to cause severe outbreaks.

 


Emily

But occasionally, when the weather lines up, you do hear of outbreaks happening in pockets of areas. But this is typically down either in the south or down in the tropics. So unlike the tomato hornworm that's normally very green with the white lines on it, this species will come in a variety of colors in a caterpillar form, from green to brown to even occasionally yellows. Now, the adults are a large grayish brown moth, and these are a type of hawk moth. So think a little bit more streamlined. The wings are going to be a little bit more thin and sharp compared to like a butterfly wing, and they are going to have black lines on the wings, but they are known, and you can tell them apart from the other species of hawk mocks because these guys have pink markings along their abdomen. Now, that's going to be hidden when they're at rest because the wings will fold over to hide it. But if you see them in flight or if you were to put out, say, like a black light at night and try to catch them on like a sheet and you were able to stretch them out, you would see these pink markings on the underside.

 


Mikaela

They're kind of cool looking.

 


Emily

They are a neat one. They're really pretty. So, yeah, they're one of my favorite ones.

 


Mikaela

Nice, Emily. That's a good choice.

 


Emily

Yeah, I know. I like them. I thought they were fun.

 


Mikaela

Part of wants them and part of me doesn't.

 


Emily

Well, again, as John mentioned, sweet potatoes put on such large amounts of biomass with regards to our leaves and a lot in times, although we just found out you can eat the leaves, so maybe we will care a little bit, but these guys tend not to show up until later in the summer. And by then, your sweet potato plants have put on such a prefola of leaves, they can kind of have some feeding on them without being too much of an issue. And I've honestly never found one of these caterpillars on any of my sweet potatoes. We found the moth, but never the caterpillars. I don't think they're as common as they like the tomato or the tobacco hornworm.

 


Mikaela

Sure, that makes sense. I'm looking at some pictures of people holding them. They are huge. They're not quite large.

 


Emily

Yeah, .

 


Mikaela

They are like not as big as a luna moth, but still sizable.

 


 

:Music Get your tips of the Month Here with Rachel:

 


Rachel

All right, everybody, it's the garden tip of the month, so I know you have an extensive vegetable garden right now because we've been talking about vegetable gardening since probably January, because that's what we do, right? So hopefully you've planted some spring peas, and those peas are beginning to ripen, so pick the pods when they're really tender to keep those plants producing. Warm season crops like your tomatoes and peppers are free to go outside after the danger of frost has passed, and that's usually around Mother's Day for the Eastern Shore of Maryland. But you can go online and track your frost free date and kind of gauge it from there as well. If you're getting your plants ready to go out in the garden, mix up a half cup of ground lime with your soil in the planting hole to prevent blossom and rot from your tomatoes and peppers. And water each transplant with a soluble fertilizer, like compost, tea or kelp extract to get them off to a good start. Now, this is a caveat here, so you're going to add a soluble fertilizer if your soil test recommends that you need that added fertilizer.

 


Rachel

If you haven't done a soil test yet of your raised beds or your in ground garden, you need to do that before you add any type of fertilizer. And we have a really great page on our Home and Garden Information Center website for soil testing in the state of Maryland and where to send your soil tests out to make sure you pinch the blooms from flowers and vegetable transplants before you put them out in the garden. And this will help direct your plants energies to root development instead of fruit development, because you really want to establish a good, healthy root system first, and this will also result in more productive plants in the growing season. You can gently break up the roots of a root bound transplant before you plant it as well. Also, a great thing to do with your tomatoes is to pinch off those suckers to encourage a larger, earlier fruit, especially if you're training to one central stem. And there's a really good video on the Home and Garden Information Center website and on our YouTube that shows you how to do this exactly. Your cool season crops like lettuce, broccoli, kale, and radishes may begin to bolt because of the hot temperatures that we experience in May, so this means we can go to flour earlier.

 


Rachel

If this happens, it's time to remove them and make room for some warm season crops. If you love summer bulbs as much as I do, it's time to get them in the ground. And our summer bulbs include elephant ear, begonias, cannas, palladium and gladiola and dahlias, too. Who doesn't love a good dahlia. Ticks are really active all summer, so let's just remember to wear light colored clothing and get yourself in the habit of checking yourself and loved ones and pets closely for ticks after spending some time outdoors. Repellents are also a really effective tool to keeping ticks away. And that's all I have for this month, everyone.

 


 

:up beat music:

 


 Mikaela

Well, that's all we have for this episode, listener. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll tune in next month for more gardening tips. If you have any garden related questions, please analysts at umegardenpodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at Garden Time podcast. That's garden T-H-Y-M-E for more information about the University of Mail Extension and these topics, please check out the University of Mail and Extension Home and Garden Information Center's website. Thanks for listening, and have fun getting down and dirty in your garden. Goodbye.

 

Rachel

The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Senior Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture, Rachel Rhodes- Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County), and Emily Zobel-Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

  

Emily 

University programs, activities, and facilities are available to all without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, national origin, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, religion, protected veteran status, genetic information, personal appearance, or any other legally protected class.

 

 


Mikaela

I know what kind of caterpillar I would eat if I were on a survival show. It's sizable. You wouldn't need as many, but I.

 


Emily

Feel like it'd be one that would definitely be gooey inside.

 


Mikaela

Oh, yeah. By the way, for the eating of any insect that you find out in the world, please, just no joke. I have just found a recipe for fried green tomato hornworms.

 


Rachel

That's disgusting. No, thanks.

 


Mikaela

I would try it if they're cooked.

 


Emily

I ate cicada nyphms when we had those. I've eaten crickets. I've eaten yeah, I think the thing with the raw caterpillars is they're liquidy inside, and I don't think I want that. I want it cooked. But if it was fried, I would definitely eat it.

 


Mikaela

I think I cricket or mealworm tortilla chips, which were not obviously they're obscured. They make, like, it into a flour. But I actually thought they were really good.