Sweet potato harvest - more
Here’s a more complete thread on my sweet potato harvest.
I dug a Purple Passion plant too early a few weeks ago, and found nothing.
It seems the last couple weeks of warm weather was all they needed. Got a couple HUGE ones, but overall yield is small.
The Purple Passions had ZERO cracking, but the Vardaman and Nancy Hall both had a lot of cracks in them.
Purple Passion and Nancy Hall:
Only a few PP roots, but BIG.
Nancy Hall isn’t know for size, but there were a couple big ones, just severe cracking. The midsized ones had a few blemishes (plus, I shoved my fork in several of them as I was digging), and there were a lot of tiny ones, which can probably be used for mashed if nothing else, or for spring slips. The Nancy Halls could have gone longer, but due to the cracking I decided it was best to dig them all now, because I wasn’t sure if the cracking would continue to get worse over time or not. The Nancy Hall plants had the highest number of diggable, but small, roots from further along the vines where they rooted into the ground away from the “crown” of the plant.
Vardamann – this isn’t all of them, but these are the ones I rinsed off. Most are in decent condition, really. The only baker-sized ones have cracks/splits, though (not pictured here).
So my questions:
All three varieties had at least some sprouting from the roots, the Purple Passion were the worst. Why is this? They were still in active growth with no vine dieback, so I’m not sure what triggered the root sprouting. Will it affect quality? If I break off the sprouts now, but save a couple for starting slips next spring, will they “resprout” or not?
This was the worst one, most were just "nubs".
I don’t think I saw any scurf, unless that’s what those dark spots are (usually they appear where there is a split or a crack). What do you experienced sweet growers think?
Any tips on how to avoid continually shoving my fork through the roots? It was hard to judge where to dig. Even after cutting the vines off, I tried digging two feet from the crown, found nothing, went ten inches closer and I cut through a big, beautiful root!
Comments (16)
wayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
6 years ago
digdirt2
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (5)Rosie, these are so easy to grow and have a huge ROI for our frequent consumption. I usually dig them at the end of Sept here in ctrl KY. Begin digging two feet from the plant, especially if raising V. They are then placed on cardboard on the stone sun porch floor and covered with burlap and bask in the heat for at least 3 weeks. I keep the windows closed to keep it extra warm at least in the daytime. Next, I gently place them in two layers in cardboard boxes, and drape two layers of brulap overtop. Usually I sort them size wise. These boxes are then set on the downstairs floor (concrete with two inches of insulation underneath), where the usual temp is 60-65 deg. When winter sets in, I often bake a jelly roll pan full when baking bread, and then process some for freezing for pies, soups, mashed SPs, etc. A few months ago, I began snapping sprouts off last years crop, and do it monthly now-but they are still very tasty. Enjoy-now if you have secrets for raising organic peanuts, I am ready for them!...See MoreBrief Report on 2010 Sweet Potato Harvest
Comments (16)Gary, So far, we like every variety and have no complaints. They've all been good so far. I haven't seen a single, storage issue of any sort and that's wonderful because lately I've been too busy to cook much of anything except brownies and cookies for the firefighters. I think I've baked 9 batches in the last two weeks. Some varieties are starting to leaf out a little bit the last week or so. I'm going to make a sweet potato pie or cobbler this weekend or on Monday for Tuesday's fire meals. (I guess if there are no big fires on Tuesday, which is unlikely, Tim and I will have to force ourselves, lol, to eat the whole pie or cobbler ourselves.) Fire activity is on the rise here, especially in our part of the county and we've had units out at fires pretty much every day. About the only time I'm "guaranteed" there won't be a fire is really early in the day when humidity is highest and wind is low. I'm having a hard time getting anything done, inside or outside, and feel like my seed-starting, planting and transplanting is falling behind more and more every day. Every time I step foot in the garden, the fire pagers go off so I'm almost afraid to step foot in the garden, but I'm about to go out there and work anyway (or at least attempt to work) since this will be the last day we have in the 70s for a few days. We're expecting frost here on Sun. a.m., and likely a light freeze (hopefully not a heavy one) as well, but I haven't put anything in the ground yet that cannot handle frost or a light freeze. Dawn...See MoreSweet potatoes - Just harvested my first crop ever!
Comments (1)I grew some for the first time last year with slips that grew from a store bought plant. I had one sweet potato with about a foot long vine on it. I took 4" cuttings and rooted them well in water before I planted them. The silly sweet potato kept sending out vines so I kept rooting and planting them. I must have harvested about 50lbs. of sweet potatoes. They tasted just fine to me....See MoreSweet potato harvest and curing
Comments (10)I find sweet potatoes "taste good" as little as 1 week after harvest but taste is strictly subjective and depends in great part on how one fixes them. So come Thanksgiving how would you be serving them? Straight baked like a russet with nothing but butter - then you'd want them really well cured, say six weeks. But if you are serving one of the more common Thanksgiving recipes - smothered in brown sugar, or marshmallows, or maple syrup, a whipped souffle with pecans, etc. then it really wouldn't make a lot of difference how long they cured. Or you can skip the whole problem and just harvest them whenever you wish and cure them for as long as you wish and get store-bought ones that are already cured for Thanksgiving. My point is you are creating a problem for yourself where none need exist by setting a fixed deadline. That approach seldom works whether one is talking about growing flowers for a wedding date and hoping they bloom on time, planting a watermelon to guarantee it will be perfectly ripe for the 4th of July picnic, or having the perfect sweet potato for Thanksgiving. There are too many variables involved to insure success. Dave...See More
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