We spent 13 years building an abundant fruit forest, annual veggie beds, perennial medicinal herbs, and a healthy mixed hardwood-coniferous forest and now we’ve sold our property to the next stewards so that we can begin a new homesteading project in Vermont closer to our best friends and their kids.

Don’t worry - we plan to keep this website up and running so that our customers can reference what we’ve written about our plants!

We’ll let you know once we re-start a farm in Vermont!

Chinese Mountain Yam

Dioscorea batatas

Habit
Vine
Ecological Role
Edible perennialFast growingTolerates shade
Availability
Sold out

A perennial vine with elegant glossy leaves, Chinese mountain yam can grow up to 15 feet tall each season.  It blooms in late summer and produces underground potato-flavored edible tubers which store well and can be kept in the ground all winter.  Tae Hak Lee, a UofO nursery intern from Korea, said that his family uses the slippery juice of the tubers to soothe sore throats.  Plants prefer full sun and rich soil but can tolerate clay soils and partial shade.

The Apios Institute has collected interesting photos and stories about Chinese Mountain Yam at http://apiosinstitute.org/dioscorea-batatas-chinese-yam

Ken Fern with Plants for a Future provides a nice summary of their experience with Chinese Mountain Yam at http://www.pfaf.org/user/cmspage.aspx?pageid=60