How to Grow Ube at Home? – It can be convenient to get different kinds of produce from the market. However, you’ll find that it can also be great to grow your own plants at home, There are plenty of tips and tricks to growing produce at home. Among the different crops, you can grow at home, there is one unique one to try. That crop is ube. Ube is otherwise known as purple yam and is a root vegetable.
It mostly grows in the Asian Tropics and is popular in the Philippines as a dessert flavor. When it comes to the growing conditions of ube, it mostly involves a temperate amount of sun and water plus loamy, loose, and well-draining soil plus balanced fertilizer. If you want to grow this purple root vegetable at home, there are different ways to go about it.
Preparation Before Growing Process
How to grow ube at home? Like any other vegetable, there is a process that comes with growing ube at home. If you want to ensure you get quality or edible purple yams, there are a few notes to keep in mind. The first thing to do before anything is to check if you have the right equipment. Having something as simple as a good container can help smoothen out the overall process. It also helps to have the following tools.:
- Clippers
- Knife
- Compost
- Shovel
- Fertilizer
- Micronutrients
Once you have the following tools or have something close to them, you will need to collect the tubers. Ube is not a readily available plant in all markets, but there are ways to find it. The most you will need are purple yam pieces that contain a bud or “eye.” You can also go for bulbils(small structures resembling bulbs that form at the nexus of a leaf and stem), which can be planted whole once it is prepared properly. Using the “sett”, the upper tip of the tuber is also good.
How to Grow Ube at Home?: The Process
After preparing the bulbs, you will want to have the pieces dried out. This will help prevent the bulbs from rotting after they are planted. You can consider this as a type of curing process to ensure the bulbs/pieces do not rot when planted. The way this works is that you leave the cuts out in the sun to dry for several days. Another option is to dip the cut portion of each upper tip in wood ash to quicken the process. You can also do this then store the pieces in a warm, dark, dry, and well-ventilated area as an alternative curing process.
Following or during this drying/curing process, you will want to have a planting space prepared for the bulbs. It’s best to have the bulbs planted in an area that is relatively free of rocks and has a good amount of sunlight. Before planting, however, it would be good to amend the soil with organic compost and other organic materials like fallen leaves or other plant remnants. Since purple yam plants can grow 20 to 30 feet tall and 3 to 6 feet wide in size, you’ll want to use a relatively large lot of soil or a large container for the root vegetable crop.
Depending on the size of bulbs you’re using, you’ll want to try first at plating the crops 4 to 5 inches deep and 2 feet apart. If you are going for a smaller container of purple yam crops, you can go for 6 inches deep and 10 to 12 inches apart.
Caring for Your Purple Yam Plant
It can take three to 12 weeks for the cuttings to sprout. During that period, there are many ways to care for the plant. To help the plant retain moisture while suppressing weeds and adding nutrients to the soil, it would be good to add organic mulch in the soil. You can also fertilize when you first plant your yams, six weeks after that and again 12 weeks later. You can find no shortage of options when it comes to caring for plants in your home.
How to Grow Ube at Home?: Other Options and Uses for Purple Yam
While the prior instructions can help in growing purple yams for the first time, there are also other growing options you can try. For example, you can try a deeper soil depth for planting or go with a different container like a rice sack. You can also add other organic materials to help with the growth process. As a plant that is a part of the yam family, ube is a relatively hardy vegetable to grow. Ube can be grown at just about any time of the year but it would be best to grow it during the beginning or just after the rainy season when it can obtain all the moisture it needs for growth.
When it comes to the uses of ube, there is a long list of options to choose from. The most popular use for ube would be as dessert flavoring. You will find all kinds of snacks and treats in the Philippines that make use of this root vegetable. Given the sweet and rich depth of purple yam, it adds a nice flavor depth to different dishes. If you are interested in what kind of desserts would work well with ube as a flavoring, consider checking out our “Ube Leche Flan Recipe” and “Ube Biko Recipe.” You’ll also find that ube works well with different combinations as shown with our “Ube Ensaymada Recipe” and “Ube Cheese Pandesal Recipe.”
