All things Sweet

Sweet Potatoes we first tried to grow them about 8 years ago buying in slips and growing them on we had some sort of success with them, that was when we had an allotment, I grew them in a cloche and in the autumn we had a few to harvest not massive ones but it was a success, we then moved house and I have tried various different slips over the years in the garden but no success, this year I didn't buy any slips and put it to the back of my mind and concentrate on vegetables that did grow well in our ground, all that changed on Sunday we went to the local garden centre and they had Sweet Potato plants, first time ever I have seen then them on sale as plants, they are grown on from Sutton's and cost £2.99 a plant they looked strong healthy and vigorous so I purchased 3 and have planted them according to the instructions an a ridge and they are in the tunnel, so it will be interesting to see how they develop this time.
On the subject of sweet things, sugar or its substitute has always been in the my thoughts, I like sugar and have it in my tea, of course if you are going to be self sufficient you want to try and provide a s much as possible for yourself, well in my world I do, sugar from sugar beet is very lengthy and complex and costly, yes we have honey and it can be used for most things, but I want sugar, Stevia is an option I am considering, Stevia is a herb that is a natural sweetener and zero calories, it is already available as a sweetener in major supermarkets and is 3 times sweeter than sugar, I done a bit of reading up about it and gather if you dry the leaves out you then grind them up to a fine powder and there you have a natural sweetener, so I am going to order some seeds and give it a try, whatch this space for my Stevia experiment and results.