Kūmara

Also known as kumara (en)

How to sow kūmara: Slips

Sun requirement for kūmara: Plant in Full Sun

The sweet potato is a large, starchy, tuberous root. The tuber is long and tapered and has yellow, orange, red, brown, purple, or beige skin. It's flesh can be white, red, pink, violet, yellow, orange, or purple. Sweet potato cultivars with white or pale yellow flesh are not as sweet and moist as those with red, pink or orange flesh. The heart-shaped leaves and vines are sometimes eaten as greens when the plants are young, but eating the leaves interferes with the growth of the tuber underground. The sweet potato is not related to the potato or the yam.

2: plantings
2: harvests
1: seed packet

Growing kūmara

Annual

living and reproducing in a single year or less

Median lifespan

25 weeks

First harvest expected

24 weeks after planting

Last harvest expected

25 weeks after planting

Grown for

tuber harvested 1 time

How members grow kūmara

Sunniness

Planted from

Harvested for

Plant kūmara with

beet dill oregano

parsnip

bush bean

Photos

Kūmara plantings

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by shiny 2019-12-09 1

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by shiny 2016-11-13 0

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by shiny 2016-11-13 0

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by shiny 2016-12-04 0

Kumara

by shiny 2016-12-13 0

Kūmara harvests

three giant kumara

by shiny 2017-05-06 1

Kūmara

by shiny 2020-04-29 1

Kūmara harvest

by shiny 2017-05-06 0

Kūmara

by shiny 2020-04-29 0

More photos

Video

Where kūmara grow

Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.

What people are saying about kūmara

harvesting the bigger kūmara

by shiny,

We've just harvested the kūmara. It needs a warm summer, and this was the first summer we've grown it in a raised garden bed instead of a bag.

At first, I thought it was a failure. I poked around the roots and found nothing. We pull out the g…

kūmara

Taewa (Pre-european potato)

by shiny,

Generally, "Taewa" is the term used for potatoes that have been in New Zealand since before 1800, and cultivated by Maori people - but the word can be used for all potatoes.

The kūmara is a distant cousin of the potato. Both the taewa and th…

kūmara Whataroa taewa potato urenika taewa potatoes waiporoporo taewa potatoes Te Māori taewa potatoes

Indigenous plants

by shiny,

I've been growing several indigenous plants recently. Theres a miro tree that will eventually have berries. I've added karaka tawa, and hīnau to the growstuff database too, as these were (and are) food sources for the people living here for centuries…

miro tawa hīnau kūmara harakekes flax kawakawa New Zealand spinach

Kūmara

Growing kūmara