Sweet Potato Party Hats

Sweet potato vines love hot weather and lots of direct sunlight. However, freshly planted sweet potato slips with tender young shoots are not as fond of the harsh afternoon sun. To protect the new plants until they are strong and established, my son and I made a party hat for each plant. Our funny little party hats actually have a real name, cloches, and are often used in the garden to protect transplants.

Whenever I saw a cloche in use, it was usually used to keep the plant warm during a late spring drop in temperature, such as a water-filled, tall plastic ring protecting tomato transplants or plastic water bottles with the bottoms removed placed over cucumber sprouts. Since we don’t generally have a need to protect our plants from cold here in Florida, I dismissed the cloche as not a useful tool in my current location.

This year, our 4-H club worked on the 4-H Garden Project as our club project. When I saw these hats described as sun and wind protection for transplants in the 4-H project book, I filed the information away as absolutely-must-do-this-cool-trick for my summer plants. I never thought those funny paper hats that we all made as kids would be so handy someday!

Everyday, between 2pm and 4pm, my front yard becomes a field of paper hats. The first time Jared and I set them out, we spent a little too much time chasing and replacing them after every little breeze. My son had a brilliant idea to keep the covers in place: slide a few small stones into the folded rim. Perfect!

So far, our sweet potato party hats are doing their job very well. The transplants have perked up nicely, and we're already seeing new growth after only a few days. 

Just in case you forgot how to make those paper hats of your childhood, here’s a quick refresher course.

Tear a full page from the newspaper in half down the center fold. 

 Bring the top edge of the paper down to the bottom edge, folding the paper in half. 

Bring the right edge over to meet the left edge, folding the paper in half again.

Unfold the paper once, leaving a single crease down the center. 

Bring the top right corner to the center, lining the top edge with the center crease and making a triangle.

Repeat with the left top corner.

Fold the bottom edge up, taking only the top layer of paper and creasing at the bottom edge of your two triangles.

Turn the paper over and repeat with the second layer of paper.

Fold the top corners over the edges of your triangle.

Turn the paper over and repeat. We also added a staple on each flap for easier use.

You now have your transplant party hat! Simply slide a few small stone into that slit at the top and place over the plants you want to protect.

If you are planning to plant sweet potatoes this summer, I recommend ordering sweet potato slips from a nursery. Yes, I know that you can start sweet potatoes from the potatoes at the store. However, I have no idea what variety sweet potato that is at the store, which is starting to become important to me. Besides, we did plant a sweet potato from the store once, and well, I ordered sweet potato slips from a nursery this time. That should tell you how it went! I had beautiful vines invading my entire garden and sweet potatoes the size of my index finger. I made a few adjustments this time.

Another little tip if you’re planting sweet potatoes for the first time: they are invasive! Keep them trimmed back to the space you’ve designated for them. As the instructions that came with my slips said, “Don’t worry about the weeds. The sweet potatoes will soon choke them out.” This trait is perfect for my purpose this time. I want my front yard covered in vines. No more grass to cut! Yay!

Thanks for stopping by! I’m pretty excited about my front yard being covered with sweet potatoes. The vines spread pretty quickly and are absolutely lovely! No one will ever know that these vines are anything but groundcover. Hopefully, in about four months, I’ll be posting interesting sweet potato recipes like sweet potato fries and sweet potato pie and sweet potato patties and baked sweet potatoes with apples and maple syrup. Yum!!

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Betty

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