Some of the most common varieties of kumara include ‘Beauregard’ which has orange skin and flesh, red skinned ‘Owairaka Red’ which has white flesh with purple streaks and golden ‘Toka Toka Gold’.
If you have a warm sunny spot and a frost-free window for five months, you can grow your own kumara at home. The plants are vigorous vines that will grow over the ground, with the edible tubers developing below ground. Kumara can be started from tubers, potted plants (available in garden centres) and also ‘slips’, which are shoots taken from a sprouting kumara tuber.
Prepare and enrich the soil before planting kumara by digging in some Yates Thrive Natural Blood & Bone. This will add valuable organic matter to the soil and provide the establishing plants with gentle, slow-release organic nutrients. Apply further Thrive Natural Blood & Bone around the root zone every eight weeks to encourage healthy leaf growth and the development of lots of kumara tubers. As the plants develop you can pick some of the nutritious and tender new leaves and steam them or use them in stir fries.
Keep an eye out for sap-sucking insect pests like aphids and whitefly and control with weekly sprays of Yates Nature’s Way Natrasoap Vegie Insect Gun, applying both on the upper and lower leaf surfaces where these insects often hide.
After around five months (or once the vines start to yellow) you can start to gently feel under the ground for tubers and harvest as you need them.
Space saver tip: in smaller gardens, try growing a few kumara plants along and up a trellis. They will need to be tied gently to the trellis as they grow, as their preference will be to grow along the ground. Kumara can also be grown in a large, well-drained container, ensuring the potting mix is kept moist and the plants well fed.
— Courtesy of Yates
