Ube: DO NOT PLANT

Ube update: Well, that was mortifying. After proudly taking the ube rolls I’d made to the Windermere Garden Club and touting ube as a fun crop, I learned from a Master Gardener that the plant IS an invasive and IS NOT permitted to be planted in Florida. I’d made the rookie mistake of searching by its common name when I was reading about it. Turns out University of Florida’s Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plant’s plant directory uses “winged yam”, rather than “ube”. Had I used its scientific name, the “Not Permitted” status would have popped right up. I wrote up a mea culpa email that I hope the club will send to members since I won’t be at the next meeting to take back my cheerleading. I’ve also email the 2 members to whom I gave ube potatoes, asking them to destroy, not plant them. Today I’m digging up the one I have in the ground and the one in my big pot. If there are any potatoes, I’m making more of the ube paste since we really liked it. Everything else is being chopped up and composted in the tomato ring so I can be sure it doesn’t grow. My third, and last, ube is planted in a vegetable bed, next to leeks. It can wait to be dug and composted until I harvest them. Dang, they were fun, easy to grow, and good tasting. Everything an invasive needs.

My original post:

I harvested the potatoes from 2 of my 3 ube plants. The plants were from potatoes Patten gave me a couple of years ago which I planted in the ground near the boat house. Ryann’s uncle had passed them on from his garden in Miami.

The vines came up, but didn’t flourish, now I know likely due to bunny damage. Come fall, what was left died back. I figured ube was not a central Florida crop. Then, last spring, I saw new growth, and before it could be eaten, I dug up 2 of the original potatoes. One I planted in my vegetable garden next to the trellis. Another I planted in a huge container and draped the vine around a tomato cage. The third I left in the ground, and something kept eating it back, I assume the marsh hares. 

But rather than having tubers in the ground, the vines started growing fruit on the vines. Wait a minute, was I growing invasive air potatoes? I cut a little potato in half. Purple like ube was supposed to be. WTF? Ube is Dioscorea alta. Air potato is D. bulbifera. Same genus, different species. Ube is eaten in the Philippines; air potato is toxic, although Big Pharma uses it to make artificial steroids, according to the Florida Museum at UF. Additionally, ube vines twine clockwise; air potatoes twine counter clockwise. I’ll be sure to check that next year.

So now I have 8 large, 6 medium, and a dozen very small potatoes. What to do? The recipes I found either were for ice cream, used ube powder, or both. Meh I asked a Philippino woman at garden club. She agreed most ube was served sweet, not eaten as a starch. What to do? Grant searched and searched. He found a recipe for ube buns. Still sweet, since bread is full of sugar, like Hawaiian rolls, but they use fresh ube made into a sweet paste as the filling. 

I practiced making the dough. Absolutely delicious, full of cream, sugar and egg. Then I made the cooked and mashed ube filling for my second attempt. Delicious and pretty, with its deep purple color. I’m bringing some to garden club, along with a couple of the potatoes, so my new friend can grow her own. She promised me she’d ask her mother and aunts for more recipes, perhaps even ube casserole.