If you’re like me, you’ve heard people on YouTube or in health books talk about “living food.” It is food that is still trying to grow even after it is picked from the plant. There are many YouTube videos that show taking food from the grocery store, planting a piece of it, and harvesting more of the same food. I’ve experimented with celery, onions, and my most recent one—a piece of sweet potato.
The sweet potato wins hands down for being the easiest to grow and to get a good product.
In the spring, I had a sweet potato that started growing a shoot on one end. I cut a big chunk from it with a pretty tall sprout, and planted it in a large flower pot filled with fertilized garden soil. I cooked the rest of it that I didn’t plant.
I tried to add other pieces with sprouts in them as time passed, but they were too small and never started to grow. The original grew a pale, skinny, long vine that I ended up having to trellis. It looked so spindly and unhealthy, I fed it several times with liquid fertilizer.
I harvested it a few days ago and recycled the dirt into one of my raised beds. The vine was still growing and green, so I could have waited, but I was cleaning up the area and decided to see what was under the soil. Plus I didn’t hold out much hope for results, so I figured—why wait?
Boy was I surprised. Although very small (because I harvested them too early), the plant turned out the smoothest skinned, pretty little sweet potatoes.
They were small enough and the skin was thin enough to eat them skin and all. I actually liked them being small because they were easier to cut into bite sized pieces for roasting.
The flavor was amazing. I noticed I had another sweet potato doing the same thing again. They want to grow so badly, they start growing while laying in a basket on the counter. I now have another one to plant. I’ll leave this one in our small greenhouse, in case the temperatures start to drop before it matures.
It is so exciting to see how God made food to grow. Sometimes the healthiest for you are the easiest to grow.
“Then God said, ‘Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.
And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.’ And that is what happened.” Genesis 1:29-30 NLT
Have you experimented with growing food from the original food you bought at the grocery store?
I hope you will at least try a sweet potato.
And—have a great week!