Before: A nice, healthy jicama sprout with seed leaves about to open.

I’ve been proclaiming how hardy the jicama plant is recently, and now I have a new reason to say this. Remember I said I’ve planted the next generation of jicama plants? I had so many sprouts that after planting our first-ever bed of jicama plants, I had extras to give away. However, my pride in my jicama bed got a stab in the gut when a snail or snails ate two of the little sprouts. They had barely opened their seed leaves when they were rudely beheaded, leaving just a few millimetres of stem peeking from the soil.

I’ve tried this before with other plant sprouts, and I decided to do it again – I left the beheaded plants where they were to see if they could survive. I had my fingers crossed, because I knew that all of the sprouts planted had good tap and developing side roots, which would give the plants a good advantage.

After: See the beheaded stem with the new leaves sprouting!

Four days later, a new stem pushed its way out from one of the beheaded plants, and what a healthy looking stem it is! My fingers are crossed to see our first complete bed of jicama plants growing, and to harvest them in 18 to 24 months from now…

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