Digging Up The Sweet Potatoes

I wasn't exactly sure when to harvest my sweet potatoes. Some here do it right after the first frost, but I remember reading once that sweet potatoes don't store as well if they have seen a frost. According to some university websites sweet potatoes won't grow when the soil gets consistently down to 60F or 65F and I should never let them see temperatures under 50F. Well my soil is now at 60F and just going down everyday, not up. Our highs have been in the 70Fs and lows in the 40Fs. Starting on Thursday we will be getting into the 60Fs. So it was time for the sweet potatoes to come up. I wish I could have done them all today as we are getting rain right now and into tomorrow. But one bed per day is enough. And as you can see in the photo, I've got both outer circle beds filled with sweet potatoes.

I picked to do the bed with Norma's slips first. I had a whole bed made up of the slips she sent to me. I first chopped all the foliage down and put it in the compost. That wasn't as easy as it sounds since I hadn't finished turning the old pile over. As I turned it over though I added the green vines in. Hopefully it will help heat it up again.

I dug the first sweet potatoes, Korean Purple, with baited breath. I tried digging around with my hands in the soil before and could find nothing. I always thought they grew toward the top of the soil. But mine liked it farther down. The ones on the edges grew toward the outside trying to get into the hard packed dirt that forms the base of the brick path. They didn't succeed mind you, but I'm guessing they were growing toward the heat. Those were the hardest ones to dig out. Purple was a strange one. It sent long thin potatoes out into the white sweet potato row. Those were very crooked and long.

So how did they do? Well I don't have weights yet, I'll weigh them and put them in the tally once they are cured. But the best was the Purple (in the blue tub and the ones on the ground). They produced about twice as much as any other variety and they had some really big ones too. Sadly some insect had made holes in a few. I don't know if they will cure or rot. But I'll try to cure them. The second best was a tie between Korean Purple and an unknown purple variety. Norma thought it might be Korean Purple, and I would agree with her. It had very similar in habit and growth. The last one was an unknown white variety. It didn't produce well at all and was a PITA to dig up. It made very long thick roots that were hard to pull out. These weren't tubers, but just thickened roots. Of these I'll definitely grow Purple again. A taste test will decide if any of the others are worth it on taste. But regardless the white one isn't worth growing for me. Too few roots and too hard to pull.

I cleaned up the bed and put the irrigation back in. Later I remembered to come out and put the cat protectors up. While I was there I noticed how messy the herb garden had gotten. So I chopped the oregano and thyme back into its section. Both of them really want to take over the world. The chives are having trouble with the lack of rain. I didn't put irrigation in the herb garden. We always get enough rain for them. Well not this year. The chives are alive but very sad.

The garlic chives on the other hand are doing very well. I was supposed to take the flowers down as scapes so I could eat them and to keep them from blooming. I hate when garlic chives drop seed. The seedlings are hard to pull. They usually just break off and grow back. But the scapes got away from me and now they are blooming. The first flowers are starting to shatter and put their seed all over. But the bees love them so much. I'd hate to deprive the bees of such a feast.

I'd been curing my butternuts in front of the back window. I figure they get warmer there to cure better. But the sweet potatoes need the space to cure too. I put the sweet potatoes in some plastic bins. Right now I'm finding the right adjustment to the lids to get them to 85% humidity. When it gets sunny, which I'm assuming it will at some point later this week, the bins ought to heat up. I'll go for 80-85F inside when they do. I have portable weather gauge that gives me all these readings so it ought to be pretty easy to figure out. I hope so at any rate.

The butternuts have been given a much worse spot. The little tiny windows by the dinning room table are their small spot of sun. I don't usually have trouble curing those and I'm sure they will be fine there.

I suppose I ought to say something about curing squash and sweet potatoes. Neither of these are eaten right from the garden (though you can cure squash in the field). Both have to be cured because it allows their skins to toughen up and any wounds to heal. It also converts starches to sugars. Sweet potatoes aren't so sweet straight from the ground, but the longer they are stored, the sweeter they get. Both are cured for about two weeks at 80-85F. Though you can do it at lower temps if you cure them for a longer time. Since I've yet to cure a sweet potato, I'm trying to give them fairly good conditions to see how long they will store here.