Sweet potato Harvest!

[GoDawgs]

At least something went right this year! These are the sweet potatoes from the nine hills we dug yesterday. Thirty pounds. Yay!



They were put into two baskets and the baskets are now in a big black plastic trash bag to start the 10-14 day curing process. I put holes here and there in the plastic to let the excess moisture vent as it comes off the sweets and they will stay in the warm garden shed. If cool weather comes in I will put the baskets in the back of my hatchback with the windows rolled down enough to keep the temp in there around 90-95.



The largest sweet weighed an even three pounds! It was 11.5" x 4".



After they are cured, the sweets will be transferred to two plastic crates that will go into an interior closet here in the house. They seem to like it there and will last a year.... unless they all get eaten by then except for four small ones that will be saved for growing next year's slips.

[eyegrotom]

Nice Harvest

[JRinPA]

Very nice. They look kind of fat and lazy though. I guess that fat seabuck bred fat sweets.

[Gardadore]

Beautiful harvest!

[GoDawgs]

Very nice. They look kind of fat and lazy though. I guess that fat seabuck bred fat sweets.

Thanks, all.

I may have dug in just a little 5-10-15 pre-planting but otherwise they got no fertilizer. They did get regular watering and were mulched. The vines were woven through the trellis and at some point when they started hanging down from the trellis to the ground later in the season they were cut off. I've read that cutting the vines will increase the size of the potatoes so maybe that was the reason. I just cut them so that they wouldn't root into the ground.

Then again, they had a good long time in the ground to grow big. These are Jewel, a nematode resistant variety, and supposedly 120-135 days to maturity. These were planted out April 29 so were in the ground 146 days with a few starting to push up out of the ground.

[JRinPA]

GoDawgs had your vines died back at all?

My vines have not died back at all yet. I was advised last week by an old fellow longtime gardener to let them in until the vines die back - and hope the voles leave some! I do have the voles somewhat under control but we'll see when they come out. Maybe, two weeks yet?

I didn't have any that had their own spots. Everything was interplanted with either corn or cole crops. So no report yet on the single nodes except to say almost all were successful at the propagation stage and that almost every transplant grew vines well once there was more direct sun when the taller crops were harvested.

I also interplanted red beets in the corn rows and they really produce well this way. I am far past knowing what to do with the "free" red beets.

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[Uncle_Feist]

The old guy don't know much about sweet taters @JRinPA . You really need to get those out of the ground so they can cure a little before colder Temps set in. A hard frost may even damage the taters if any are exposed above the ground.

[JRinPA]

I was taught better than to argue with 40 years of gardening experience from a scant 1/2 mile away. And a huge garden at that.

Either way, I will likely try the cure in the back of a car, but if it is too cold by then, a 4 tier plastic greenhouse in the cellar with heat mats/bulb and set for 85F should do it.

It doesn't feel to me like a hard frost is anywhere close and I'm not seeing anything below 40F in the 10 day. Oct 15th or 20th is usually the first light frost, thereabouts, but some years the first light frost is also the first skim ice in the duck roosts. That said, if it snows before November, I'm all for it. I can dig them quick if I need be.

[Uncle_Feist]

Are you for sure the old guy was talking about sweets, and not regular taters? Unlike spuds, sweet tater vines don't die until killed by freezing temperatures. Around here even having a frost on the vines was a big NO. That's going back to the turn of the 19th century via my grandparents on both sides and others that are long gone.

[JRinPA]

Yes, we were looking at my undercorn patch of beets and sweet potatoes at the comm garden, last Friday. It is five days later now and I think the colors are already starting to darken a bit. I'm not talking about waiting until frost. More like before a threatened frost.

Worth had mentioned other years about letting the vines die back. I was wondering what @GoDawgs had done this year, since no before pics were shown.

This last 5 days of rain has been a beautiful steady slow rain for the most part. The plants love it. Where was this all summer? Even the okra is flowering again. But if we have a hard flooding rain predicted, I want to try to dig before that. I'll probably dig some in the next week if I have time. I'm real curious what the yield will be like from these single node cuttings that are only supposed to yield 1-2 each. For 3 of the 4 patches I'm going to have to pick the red beets too, which I'm not looking forward to either. I don't know where to go with all them.

[JRinPA]

I got mine out this week. They were in fine shape yet, but too many just undersized. The corner spots that saw the most sun in June-August did okay, but the ones in the middle of the plots were pretty skinny. Way too many that only fattened up to 1" or so.

I'm thinking corn over both beets and sweets was a bridge too far. The beet production was amazing, but I think the sweet potatoes were too late seeing enough sun. Probably corn over potatoes or beets is better for here.

In the backyard, the 30 ft bed had sweet potatoes put in each time I took spring spinach out. The spinach was in the open holes between the spring broc/cauliflower/cabbage. Some of that bed gets heavy shade from the pear tree, too, but it was all shaded most of the summer by the cole crops. The sunniest spot is the top, that gets pretty good sun, and each of the plants near the top had a some good size sweet potatoes.

Thankfully, I had no vole damage to speak of. I waged a war starting in August and it must have worked. What a difference from last year.

I'll have to go ahead and do a devoted row for sweet potatoes next year, so they get sun the whole season. Pots or bags would be easiest to harvest, and I like that 3 yr old wood chip idea. It would take a lot of water though. They loved the boxes last year, raised boxes of good compost, but the voles ate almost every one of them.

1st row

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2nd row

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at comm garden the beets ruled. That is 1/3 of what I picked that day. The tomatoes really blocked off the sun for the larger patch. The beets love the shade it seems, but not so much the sweet potatoes.

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[GoDawgs]

@JRinPA , I apologize for being late in commenting. No, the vines hadn't died back prior to harvest. I just went with the back end of the dtm dates and seeing a few starting to push out of the ground. SA few vine leaves had yellowed but for the most part, the vines were still pretty green. I wouldn't wait for vines to brown.

Too much shade could have been part of the problem too. They love the sun and heat. I see you're going to plant them in full sun next year and I bet they do much better. And by planting them all at once you'll get a more uniform harvest. Still, you've got some nice ones in there. The small ones will be fine for making slips for you next spring when planted in pots.

I've cured them before in the back of my hatchback and it works! One thing I did do though was put one of those remote thermometers in with them so when I was indoors I could see how hot it was getting in the car, then raise of lower the windows to keep the temp where I wanted it, between 85 and 95.

[Danny]

JR, you look beeten down by all the beets, what a great harvest there. Will have to remember that idea of corn and beets together. Pickled beets and plain beets ( my fave) canned up, make borscht or red flannel hash or Roast them whole ( smaller ones) under a roast or poultry ( I wrap red ones in foil if I don't want the staining. The stain is good to deepen both color and flavor of beef gravy. Salads with cooked or raw beets are good, adding some grated raw beets to coleslaw is good too. Thinly sliced beets tossed with a sesame ginger dressing is yum as is using a homemade ceasar dressing on them. Mashed sweet beets with butter, add grated beets to potato and or crab patties.

[JRinPA]

The sweet potatoes have been pretty good tasting. I have no idea what variety they were. I brought them inside for a couple cold nights but they have been in the car for quite a few warm days.

Also, I just thought of a perfect setup for vole control next year in a raised row. An evolution from this years success. I just can't decide if I want to trellis up the sweet potato vines or let them sprawl. But how bout 4" pvc pipes, 2 ft or so long, buried horizontally across the long row of sweet potatoes. With the ends open to the rows at ground level or a little under. Then put snap traps at either end, pan out. I don't know yet if the traps should be secured to the bottom of the pipe (harder to clear and reset) or just let them free and set and push them deep inside with a stick. But anyway just bury the pipe with some drilled holes in the center so the voles think there is protected access there to the interior of the raised row. Keep those holes small so the voles can't actually get through, and keep traps cleared and reset.


If you need some beets come and get 'em @Danny! I like the ideas for using them up (I have only canned plain).

Most of those pictured beets ended up getting soft sitting outside and are going for dog food. But I have a bunch more still in the ground that I'd like to save. The cold isn't coming anytime soon, this year. The majority remaining in the ground were coplanted between double rows of peppers and okra, and next to spring peas and spinach. Plus one corn row interplant, I guess. I think the beets might well have stolen some of the okra's nutrients. I thought okra should have been better with this year's heat, but it was DRY. And the lone okra bushes didn't fare any better, without beets around. Still, I might not co-plant beets and okra again, just in case.

[Danny]

Plain are my favorite, LOL and if closer, I sure would be there.