Growing Oca

I grew oca for the first time last year and loved it.  The taste of the tubers has been described as lemony potatoes and that is a good description.  It was hard not to eat them all but I wanted to save some for the following year, so I wrapped forty or so tubers loosely in an old cotton cloth and left them in a frost free garage over the winter. 

On 23 February I planted some into pots that had begun to sprout and left them for a few weeks in the same spot in the garage.  I planted them into pots because I was not sure about how early they can go into the ground.  On 7 March I planted into pots some new oca tubers just received from a supplier in France.  They also stayed in the garage for a few weeks.  On 23 March I planted the remainder of my saved tubers and a few of the French ones (these were starting to shrivel by then).  Around then as the weather was behaving I put all the pots in sheltered spots near the house. 

Because I like oca so much and because it is not that easy to come by I have been fretting about their welfare and wondering when I was going to see the first signs of growth.  I recalled that they seemed to take a long time last year, but that did not appease the anxious wait.   I was just starting to think that something had gone wrong when today I saw the first tiny green shoots peering through several of the pots!  Hooray!