Today I want to talk to you about the winged yam a very funky and cool tuber to grow.

I mean if you think about the amount of tubers that we eat it really is astounding

I mean Thanksgiving just happened you're looking at sweet potatoes there you're looking at

yams of course you guys listening know that I'm a huge fan of potatoes having grown somewhere around 80 to

100 pounds of them for the Apocalypse Grow Challenge back in 2019. So what are

winged yams? Why would we grow these? And is that something that you should really be thinking about growing in the coming season 2021?

So what we're talking about here is diascaria alata. It's also known as Winged Yam, Ube, Purple Yam, Greater Yam, White Yam, or Water Yam.

Now being a half Filipino guy, I resonate with the term Ubei because it's a staple of many Filipino desserts. I just love it. I mean it's a

fantastic flavor I grew up with it and certainly it's going to be into my garden in 2021. Now first of all let's talk about yams and

sweet potatoes though they look and taste similar they're not the same plants.

Sweet potatoes are part of the morning glory family,

while the winged yam is part of what we call the true yam family.

Diascaria alata, it is grown all around the world,

it is square shaped, it has flat ridges, and that is why it has that

winged yam name. So it's really a staple. They will take over just about any place that they can find. I mean they've escaped

cultivation in the southern United States and the Virgin Islands in Puerto Rico. It is

actually quite a destructive plant so as a gardener you are responsible for keeping it contained

don't let it get outside of your property it is not high maintenance and the fact

that it spreads that easily it should imply that to you as a gardener.

Anything that is considered invasive shouldn't be that hard to grow.

So let's talk about exactly how to grow it.

So like potatoes, winged yams are grown by planting chunks of the tuber. So you can buy

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