Conducting an interview in Wales in May I was the grateful recipient of a Yacon seedling.
Yacon is a perennial daisy native to South America. It grows tubers which taste, fresh, like something between an apple and a sweet potato. But the root is very versatile and can be dried into crisps, turned into a syrup, roasted, and even juiced. It’s a very unusual and interesting plant.
I planted my Yacon seedlings, rather confidently, into my own compost. This was created on the roof garden itself from a mixture of domestic uncooked vegetable waste, plant matter from the garden itself, woodchip, and ripped up recycled paper from Amazon packaging.
I remember feeling pretty good about this potting in early June.
Fast forward to today, now nearing the end of October, the plant is looking fantastic. I’m going to wait until December before I dig the tubers out, and replant the rhizomes.
As you can see from the rubble everywhere, the garden is still in disarray. I’m hoping to get it all tidied up before I start reorganising for the winter – a process that will, rather excitingly for me, involve sowing cover crops for the first time.