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The best way to domesticate and harvest cassava root, the simplest calorie-dense meals plant to develop and the ninth hottest crop on this planet.
I used to be excited to reap my first cassava plant final week, and I wished to share the outcomes with you!
Cassava is, by far, the simplest food-producing plant I’ve ever tried to develop.
It’s far simpler than potatoes, one other fashionable selection for a calorie-dense meals plant.
For novice gardeners who dwell in a temperate clime, cassava is a wonderful selection to realize confidence by getting an enormous win on the board shortly.
Optimum Clime
Even in case you get the occasional freeze, cassava can nonetheless be a good selection to develop.
For instance, final winter we had a number of nights under freezing.
I wasn’t precisely positive shield my cassava crops as they have 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 peak within the Spring with no hurt to the edible roots within the floor!
Cultivating Cassava
If after seeing this video under, you wish to strive your hand at rising cassava, I’d advocate discovering a great 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 just a few cuttings once they harvest the basis! The image under provides you a tough concept of the dimensions that’s ideally suited.
Plant the cuttings in soil and water each different day or so. In my expertise, as soon as established, it grows properly regardless of if the soil is moist, dry, or simply proper.
You possibly can plant the slicing 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 technique.
Cassava sprouts and grows like a weed! Actually inside just a few days, the brand new cassava plant might be poking out of the soil rising fortunately.
The soil doesn’t even must be that nice, though definitely nutrient-rich soil goes to provide a extra nutritious root.
Cassava grows very properly in sandy soils too.
Harvesting the Roots
When your cassava plant is a few 12 months outdated, 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 truly most likely ought to have harvested it a few months earlier as among the root was too woody to course of and eat.
In different phrases, you don’t need to depart the cassava plant too lengthy or the roots will steadily develop into inedible.
One other suggestion is to at the 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 potential, clear and peel the roots shortly and freeze what you gained’t prepare dinner straight away.
Cooking Cassava
My subsequent put up and video about cassava that I’m engaged on proper now’s put together and revel in it on the house menu!
Keep tuned!
