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Find out how to domesticate and harvest cassava root, the best calorie-dense meals plant to develop and the ninth hottest crop on the earth.
I used to be excited to reap my first cassava plant final week, and I needed to share the outcomes with you!
Cassava is, by far, the best food-producing plant I’ve ever tried to develop.
It’s far simpler than potatoes, one other in style selection for a calorie-dense meals plant.
For novice gardeners who dwell in a temperate clime, cassava is a wonderful selection to achieve confidence by getting an enormous win on the board rapidly.
Optimum Clime
Even for those who get the occasional freeze, cassava can nonetheless be a sensible choice to develop.
For instance, final winter we had a number of nights under freezing.
I wasn’t precisely positive find out how to shield my cassava crops as they had been throughout 8 ft tall.
This was far too excessive to cowl. So, I selected to chop them again to some inches above the bottom after which shield the roots with a tarp.
The outcome was precisely as I had hoped.
The cassava crops grew again to full top within the Spring with no hurt to the edible roots within the floor!
Cultivating Cassava
If after seeing this video under, you wish to attempt your hand at rising cassava, I might advocate discovering a very good supply of cassava cuttings.
Rising cassava from cuttings is sort of foolproof and ensures a candy root.
Rising from seed dangers a extra bitter-tasting outcome.
A 5-6 inch part of the stem is all you want. So if you understand somebody who grows cassava, ask them for a number of cuttings once they harvest the basis! The image under provides you a tough thought of the dimensions that’s best.
Plant the cuttings in soil and water each different day or so. In my expertise, as soon as established, it grows nicely regardless of if the soil is moist, dry, or simply proper.
You may plant the chopping both vertically with an inch or two sticking up out of the soil or horizontally an inch or two deep within the soil.
I’ve tried each approaches and horizontally is my most well-liked methodology.
Cassava sprouts and grows like a weed! Actually inside a number of days, the brand new cassava plant might be poking out of the soil rising fortunately.
The soil doesn’t even should be that nice, though definitely nutrient-rich soil goes to provide a extra nutritious root.
Cassava grows very nicely in sandy soils too.
Harvesting the Roots
When your cassava plant is a couple of yr previous, it’s time to harvest.
As you possibly can see within the video, my first plant was knocked over in a storm with enormous roots uncovered.
I really most likely ought to have harvested it a few months earlier as a number of the root was too woody to course of and eat.
In different phrases, you don’t wish to go away the cassava plant too lengthy or the roots will steadily develop into inedible.
One other suggestion is to at the very least clear and peel the roots inside a few days of harvest.
Deterioration of the basis quickly happens, so to make sure you get as a lot edible cassava as doable, clear and peel the roots rapidly and freeze what you received’t cook dinner straight away.
Cooking Cassava
My subsequent submit and video about cassava that I’m engaged on proper now could be find out how to put together and luxuriate in it on the house menu!
Keep tuned!
