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How you can domesticate and harvest cassava root, the best calorie-dense meals plant to develop and the ninth hottest crop on the planet.
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 common alternative for a calorie-dense meals plant.
For novice gardeners who stay in a temperate clime, cassava is a wonderful alternative to achieve 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 beneath freezing.
I wasn’t precisely certain shield my cassava vegetation as they had been throughout 8 toes 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 end result was precisely as I had hoped.
The cassava vegetation 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 beneath, you wish to strive your hand at rising cassava, I’d advocate discovering an excellent supply of cassava cuttings.
Rising cassava from cuttings is almost foolproof and ensures a candy root.
Rising from seed dangers a extra bitter-tasting end result.
A 5-6 inch part of the stem is all you want. So if you already know somebody who grows cassava, ask them for a number of cuttings once they harvest the foundation! The image beneath offers you a tough concept of the dimensions that’s excellent.
Plant the cuttings in soil and water each different day or so. In my expertise, as soon as established, it grows properly irrespective 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 popular technique.
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 properly in sandy soils too.
Harvesting the Roots
When your cassava plant is a couple of yr previous, it’s time to harvest.
As you may see within the video, my first plant was knocked over in a storm with big roots uncovered.
I truly in all probability 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 go away the cassava plant too lengthy or the roots will regularly change into inedible.
One other suggestion is to a minimum of clear and peel the roots inside a few days of harvest.
Deterioration of the foundation quickly happens, so to make sure you get as a lot edible cassava as attainable, clear and peel the roots shortly and freeze what you received’t prepare dinner immediately.
Cooking Cassava
My subsequent put up and video about cassava that I’m engaged on proper now’s put together and luxuriate in it on the house menu!
Keep tuned!