I posted last week on our wonderful success growing no-work sweet potatoes in our front yard food forest.
Two days ago I saw that my friend Andi reported similar success.
I like her idea of growing sweet potatoes as a ground cover one year, followed by squash the next. That would definitely help lower the pest problems on both crops.
Various worms and larva like to eat sweet potatoes, squash bugs and borers like to eat squash. The pests don’t cross species. They also tend to overwinter in the same place. If they wake up after eating sweet potatoes one year to then discover the food is gone… they’ll move on.
As a side note: good squash (like Seminole pumpkins or butternuts) and sweet potatoes taste quite similar and can even be used interchangeably in many recipes, meaning you’re not really giving up much by switching.
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| Harvesting sweet potatoes is like digging for treasure. |
Try growing some sweet potatoes in your food forest next year and let me know how you do. It’s worked for me, it’s worked for Andi, and I bet it’ll work for you too.
