We had a failure in keeping cassava through the winter.
I buried a bunch of stems into a sand hill near us to keep them through the winter. I did something similar in Florida. Here, however, it didn’t work. All of my cuttings rotted!
I will have to try a different method next year. The rainfall here is high, so I think the cold, sopping wet ground did them in.
I had saved enough to plant a small field… and now I have very few.
The only cassava that survived the winter were the cuttings I kept in bundles inside a pair of feed bags in the greenhouse, and the dozen or so cuttings I potted up in case my in-ground storage failed.
Always have backups!
Last week I re-shaped an eroded sandpile and made a new space to garden.
There was a biochar burn pit, some grass and a sloped area of eroded sand, but now there is a tall pile of sand and a nice flat area for gardening.
We shaped it into mounded beds and planted the cassava canes yesterday.
The bed on the far right has cane buried horizontally in it with some small shoots coming up that cannot be seen in this picture.
Today we’re going to mulch these beds to keep them from eroding. Heavy rains are expected this evening and I don’t want my hard work melting away. This area is like beach sand with almost no organic matter. The mulch will help keep it from eroding and add some life to the system.
I also buried some fresh cow manure under the sand when we made these beds.
We are getting a mounded cart-full of manure about every three days from our Dexter cows. I think they might be worth having just for their manure production – it’s just what my poor soil needs!
I am glad we managed to keep some cassava alive, though losing most of our stock was a blow. The high-producing variety I grew out last year was carefully cut into dozens of cuttings and stored in that sand pit. Now we only have a few of those remaining, and I won’t know which they are until they produce again and let me know via their exemplary production. It’s like starting over, but at least we didn’t lose everything.
The two bags of cuttings I saved were my old North Florida variety I got from Indians in Frostproof.
Sam at Scrubland Farmz kept propagating that variety when I moved overseas and hooked me up again some months ago. It makes large roots but requires a long growing season. It’s not well-suited to this area and will probably take two years to harvest.
Right now I am looking for fast-producing types if anyone has leads. We had a short variety in Grenada that made big roots in just four months but I can’t find it here. Yet! We’ll keep searching.
Have a great day, everyone. I hope to record some new videos soon.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
5 comments
I still have TOGO if u need some more.
I did numerous experiments in Florida 9a and none of my canes were viable. I stored some in a garbage bag in the garage, some in a green army tent with a sand floor, and buried some in a box in the woods. The ones in the woods started growing mid winter but were then killed by frost. The others all molded and dried out. I dug up the ones in the woods and planted them but they still haven’t come up after almost a month. We definitely need to work out some method of preserving canes in frost prone areas. I had to buy new stock, boo.
One year I planted in April and had great root growth in November. I harvested some and let some die to the ground over winter. They grew again during the whole summer. When I went to harvest in November, there were no tubers. Each tree had one sad knotty root holding it. It makes me skeptical that second year trees will produce anything of value. Have you harvested second year tubers?
I cut the canes back last fall on our first year plants. So far they just look bug-eaten and lifeless in the ground. I’ll give them a couple more weeks, but then I’m going to dig them out and plant sweet potatoes, instead. My Cuban husband really wants homegrown cassava, but if these don’t come back up soon, they’re compost. Good luck with yours this year! Hopefully the high yielding ones do well again.
I started 10 cuttings in pots back in November. I put them in my garage during freezes. I watched a video from a cassava grower in Brazil. They are in a cold area and stand bundles of canes under a large tree, making sure the lower ends are touching the sandy soil. My plan is to set mine out last of Feb (north Florida) and harvest them just before the first frost. Then put the canes in a bucket with some sand in it in my garage.
I think that will bring them through, so long as they aren’t too damp. The damp has killed mine multiple times in winter.
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