Taissa and her husband unearthed a 65lb yam in Deland, Florida:

This is a marvelous Dioscorea alata specimen. The wilder forms have lots of lobes and take some effort to process, but they are quite good to eat.

This one is like a small planetoid!

That yam probably weighs more than half of what she does!

I first guessed this must be an older yam, being so big.

One of the Great Old Ones, in fact.

Yet it’s only two years of age! Now that’s some good gardening.

We recently found some D. alata yams growing along the roadside in the panhandle. They grow without care and produce a lot of calories, unlike many of the commonly grown vegetables in Florida backyard gardens.

True yams are the perfect survival root crop for Florida.

This is why they feature heavily in my Florida gardening books.

Great work, power couple!