sweetening yacon and storing crowns

Does anyone grows yacon in zone 5? If yes, do you keep bulbs in a root cellar until last frost, or rather plant them in pots late winter, and then move to the garden after last frost? Obtaining yacon roots was a challenge here in Poland but finally I have a few, and I want to make best use of them. Last frost date here is 15th May, please advise how to handle yacon from now to this date.

I just dug up one of my yacon plants, and they're not sweet like the tubers I've bought.
I know there's an aging process that makes them sweeter but I don't know what that entails.

Do you store them somewhere dry or humid, light or dark, and what temperature, airflow or no airflow?


should the crowns be removed from the stems for storage until next season, and can they be stored in dirt like you'd store sunchokes?


thanks for any help.

curing yacon roots (to sweeten them up) is usually done at room temp - it seems to go fastest in a warm windowsill, though the roots will start to soften up a bit - so i guess dryer, with some airflow.  when i'm digging yacon, the stems have usually been pretty thoroughly freeze-killed, so i cut off as much of the stem as possible for storage. maybe if the stem seems to be still have some life in it, you'll want to keep some? i store crowns in damp soil in a cool room (would prefer a root cellar but need to dig one first!).

I don't have to deal with cold winters, so I'm not sure how people store the tubers in such conditions. But here in Hawaii people will either store them in some moist peat moss or simply replant them where they want the next crop to be. I simply replant.

Greg is right. They are stored for a short while in a warm, dry spot.

Well, I just left them in my backroom for the week and they got nice and sweet.
Some of the smaller ones got cracks and dried out a bit but they were still fine.

I left mine in the barn with the dahlias they have sweetened up in the 2 months they have been harvested. (temps in the barn around 3C to 7C) I read that after that putting them in the light for a couple of days will make them even sweeter.

As per my understanding, you can successfully grow Yacon in Zone 5... But you'll need to handle the bulbs carefully just because Yacon is sensitive to frost. You should occasionally feed compost during its growing season and apply a thick layer of mulch to retain moisture levels around the bulbs.