Today I planted out four sweet potato plants.
I dug the soil over and mounded it up slightly.
Then I pegged down black plastic to suppress weeds and, importantly, warm the soil. Last year I just popped two plants directly into the soil, totally unprotected - it was considerably warmer. It was an experiment, I'd bought the plants late and just thought I'd try them out. When I dug them up, in the company of my grand daughter, we were thrilled to find some small sweet potatoes. This year I'm going for it!
After cutting crosses in the black plastic I planted four Beauregarde sweet potato plants into the soil through the plastic. The recommended distance to leave between plants was 12 inches but I left 18 inches - as they are under a cloche I'm hoping they'll get really big!
I had to search for wooden stakes to peg down the plastic as I'd run out of bought pegs. I love this view inside the cloche!
Bricks were necessary to hold down the sides of the thin, plastic cloche. It was windy - not the best conditions under which to single-handedly deal with plastic sheeting! But it did give me an idea of how the cloche would react to wind and it should now be secure.
There's a bit of space left at one end of the cloche so I'm thinking about what I might plant there. Any suggestions?
