Growing Sugarcane In a Tiny Container

Today we're talking about growing sugarcane in containers. There's many uses for sugarcane. You can juice it. You can cut it up and chew on it. You can also do this. All right, in all seriousness, let's talk about how we grow. Sugarcane is a grass and you know how well we grow grass around here. But like grass, it's a plant that spreads very easily once it's established and it's also something that's easy to propagate. So that's kind of the step one. You need to go get yourself a sugarcane. There's multiple sources. Some of the Asian markets sell them. Etsy has quite a few. They have some more unique varieties like Buddha Belly. There's some different interesting varieties out there. What I did was ask my mango growing friend Richard to get me some of his. So it went kind of like this. I called him. I was like, hey Rich, can I get some sugarcane cuttings from you? And he says, is it mango? But once you get your stick, you can go ahead and bury it in the ground and eventually it'll root out and then it'll start growing shoots out or canes. Since we're growing them in containers, we can't fit it in there sideways. So what you do is you cut it back here into this node. This is where all the party happens, where all the edible part is. And in between this section, I cut this part out and then I buried it and I waited a month and eventually this will root out. I started in the winter time and it took about two months to see any growth. I did dig it out about a month in to see what it looked like and there was a little bit of roots forming. In terms of potting soil, I'm a firm believer in a mineral-based soil. I believe that organic material in the root zone is the main problem with all container mixes and that you should be using more of a mineral-based soil. Sand, pumice, perlite, this type of things. Peat moss is also fine. This is not to say that compost in itself is bad. In nature, compost is totally necessary, but you want to keep it on top and not in the container because that's the main cause of root rot. I have a full video of that in the description if you want to learn about more. As far as container sizes, you want to go as big as you're comfortable with because these things will keep growing and they'll keep spreading and they'll fill up the container and you'll get more and more canes, right? But as far as the minimum container size, I have this in a one gallon, surprisingly, and this was the container that I had rooted cutting in the first place. I'd wanted to go up to a five gallon. That was my plan. Basically, I left this under my misting system and I went out of town for about two months and I came back and it was like eight feet tall and I figured, let's just see how long this will work and let's see if it's possible to get the whole harvest from a one gallon. But definitely bigger is better. It'll last you longer and the plant will probably get more of the nutrition that it needs. So growing conditions, it likes full sun. They take a lot of water. If you're using a small container like me, you just need to water more frequently, but it can handle it. So fertilize all my plants the same. I use Osmoco Plus when I plant it and I use organics. You want to have something that has the biology in there and some mycorrhizae helps too, but that's how I kickstart all the plants. So when you're growing these in containers, they get really tall. So you do need to be careful of the wind because they can't easily tip it over. Like the winds picked me up now. So you need to be conscious of like where you're putting it. Maybe a heavier soil mix will be good with this. Something with more sand. These had been sitting inside milk crates and though they rooted through the bottom. So they kind of just held on to the crates themselves. That was kind of a good situation for me. Now that I take them out here for the video, they've been just tipping over. I had to put some bricks on top. Sugar cane typically can't handle any frost. So it is something that you have to grow in kind of a more tropical type of area. If you're bold enough, you'd have to bring it in somewhere to shelter it. I don't get any frost in my area or haven't in many years. Maybe back in the 80s I had some frost, but basically I'm just going to cut these down and let them grow back up every year. For pruning these plants, there's not really anything you need to do for shape. You just let them grow. As it starts growing, the old older leaves here start to die back. You can just pull them off. I have to cut them off because they get in the way of where I'm walking. And again the eyes. And you need to be a little bit careful because these edges can get sharp. So I always wear gloves when I do that. Just let them grow to a point where they get to the size and then you just harvest them. They start to grow new shoots out from the bottom. You can see over here. And that'll be next year's growth or whatnot. At least that's how it keeps growing. Let's do a quick little harvest of this. Just grab this right here No, I'm just kidding. I'm gonna get my, I'm just gonna go get my loppers and cut this off. There you go. Get it back to a section like this. All right. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited about this. First time I had sugar cane, my mom had brought it home. I said, what the, what are we supposed to do with these sticks? She's like, sugar cane, you eat it. I was like, oh that's weird. I was a kid back then. First you peel out the outer layer and you can just chew on the stuff inside. And then my mom cut a piece and I was chewing on it. I was like, oh it's delicious. And I kept chewing on it more and more. And then I asked her, what am I supposed to do with this now? She's just supposed to eat it. You just spit it out. Oh, okay. But I do remember that it tastes very well. And also we're just going to split in half. And also sugar cane juice is hard to beat on a hot summer day. I used to have a place near my house called Big Daddy Cane, but went out of business. All right, I got a piece. That's very sweet. Not that juicy, but it does have the right taste. So it can be done in a one gallon container. Definitely give it a try if you're bored and you want to grow something different. And make sure to watch my video on drip irrigation if you don't want to bother watering it in that one gallon container. Thanks for watching and make sure you like and subscribe.