Mark S. shares success with growing jicama as a survival crop:
Hi David
I’ve been growing jicama for a few years now  I live in the Australian tropics so it grows all year round, in fact it’s absolutely free here during the wet season. Automatically watered by the climate. You just pop a seed in the ground and forget it for 4 months
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I live on a standard quarter acre house block and have about 60 plants growing at any one time in a combination of pots and in-ground beds. Most of my pots are two gallon in size so they don’t take up much space.
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My plantings gives me from 2 to 4 kgs of jicama per week as a constant sustainable supply.
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The number of ways this amazing plant can be prepared in the kitchen seems to be endless. Our favourite at the moment is what we call jicaslaw, an alternative to coleslaw.
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I thought it might be a good topic for one of your survival gardener videos if you haven’t already focused an episode on this plant. I watch your channel regularly and enjoy the content immensely but I don’t think I’ve seen anything specifically focused on the history and growth of this vegetable
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Anyway, keep up the good work. Advice on cheap affordable sustainable gardening techniques is truly lacking on the internet, in my opinion. I always preach to people that if they want to save money just grow your own vegetables, it’s easy.
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Kind regards
Mark
Jicama is a crop I haven’t done much with. The only time I grew it was on accident, when I gave some yard-long bean seeds to a friend and he planted them and brought me some starts. As they grew, they looked weirder than any yard-long bean I’d seen. The vines were exuberant and densely covered my big bean trellis. The leaves were also larger and coarser – and then they went into bloom. The blooms were purple-blue.
At that point, I was wondering if I had ended up with kudzu somehow.
I can’t remember how I figured out what they were. I think it was when a friend visited, perhaps Craig Hepworth, and said “hey – nice jicama!”
“Wait… that’s jicama?”
I called my friend who had started the seeds and he had no recollection of planting any jicama, but jicama they were, as evidenced by the beautiful tubers they made.
A little while after, I moved to Grenada and didn’t get a chance to actually grow them on purpose. There I did get some seeds from my friend Dr. Guido Marcelle, but we ended up leaving the island before I planted them.
I must admit to not generally doing well with vining plants, as I rarely seem to have enough trellis space available for everything I want to grow. It sounds like I need to make some more room for jicama in 2023.
If I grow it, I will indeed make some videos. It sounds like a grievous oversight on my part. They were certainly easy to grow – even on accident!
Jicama is a crop I haven’t done much with. The only time I grew it was on accident, when I gave some yard-long bean seeds to a friend and he planted them and brought me some starts. As they grew, they looked weirder than any yard-long bean I’d seen. The vines were exuberant and densely covered my big bean trellis. The leaves were also larger and coarser – and then they went into bloom. The blooms were purple-blue.
At that point, I was wondering if I had ended up with kudzu somehow.
I can’t remember how I figured out what they were. I think it was when a friend visited, perhaps Craig Hepworth, and said “hey – nice jicama!”
“Wait… that’s jicama?”
I called my friend who had started the seeds and he had no recollection of planting any jicama, but jicama they were, as evidenced by the beautiful tubers they made.
A little while after, I moved to Grenada and didn’t get a chance to actually grow them on purpose. There I did get some seeds from my friend Dr. Guido Marcelle, but we ended up leaving the island before I planted them.
I must admit to not generally doing well with vining plants, as I rarely seem to have enough trellis space available for everything I want to grow. It sounds like I need to make some more room for jicama in 2023.
If I grow it, I will indeed make some videos. It sounds like a grievous oversight on my part. They were certainly easy to grow – even on accident!
“Jicama” image by Gary Soup is licensed under CC BY 2.0 
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8 comments
Well, we have enjoyed EATING jicama, when it’s been available to us. Never thought about growing it.
We’re are trying to design “push the zone” principles into our GRG. A privacy fence along the west edge will help protect from the prevailing winds from SW, and a combination of some kind of rock or block wall on the north, with some kind of “fence”along the top. As you can tell, we are still in the “What if” stage of the design.
Anyway, a nice jicama vine may be a good thing to experiment with.
Grand Risings! My name is Krystal Christopher and I have been following your YouTube channel literally for years now. I just sat down this weekend to binge watch your Grocery row garden series. First of all thank you so much for all your books over the years! This summer I found myself 54yrs old engaged with purchased land in St Croix USVI. We will begin building our house (God willing) within the next 3 months. I’ve been gardening since I was 9yrs old with my Dad. But my growing expertise is Newburgh/Albany, NY and currently living in Maplewood, MN. So your videos and books have come in handy. I found out what grows naturally. I literally cried because it was an answer to a prayer. We will be setting up the permaculture garden because hard times are upon us. We truly love our bellies. I’m disappointed my money is funny and I can’t make it to the ScrubFest 2022. Hopefully you will drop a few pearls. Once I get settled down there I be recording my progress. Blessings to you and your family.
Fantastic! Thank you. St. Croix is EASY gardening. Cassava, dasheen, true yams, sweet potato, breadfruit, coconuts… it’s stinkin’ easy.
Just tried growing jicama this year in south Georgia and boy has it done great, vine and leaves anyway, haven’t dug up the tubers yet. I was wondering if you have advice on when / how to harvest the seed pods for seed saving purposes, the standard internet search was not much help with this question. Thanks for all your great info, Nathan.
I would wait until they dry on the vine, like other beans.
Will do, thank you for the response.
Well David’s good to see you on Google AI wow surprise I live in Middle Georgia Atlanta area and I was just asking my wife about I wonder if we can grow jicama I thought I’ll ask David the Google. One day we’ll meet my friend. Kiss all your lovely kids and animals for me please
Thanks.
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