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| 79 Pounds of Sweet Potatoes! |
Remember my sweet potato adventures? I bought slips from Parks back in the spring. I had no idea what I was doing. I just thought sweet potatoes sounded like a good idea.
Totally clueless, I planted the slips in the big 20 x 20 bed. I read a book and made long hills for the potatoes just like it said in the book. I thought they were all dying, they looked so wilted and sad! This was back in April.
Over the summer, the vines grew vigorous and healthy. So did the weeds. The entire bed was one big, matted tangle of weeds. I tried to pull the out once, but managed to pull up a sweet potato vine, so I just left it. This summer temperatures were ridiculously hot and a drought persisted over several months. The sprinkler barely touched the sweet potato bed, but my neighbor Joan, who had raised them many times, said, “As long as the vines look healthy the potatoes will be fine.”
In September I thought it was time to harvest them. Remember that? I dug up one vine and was so disappointed. I thought the whole crop was lost. Now I know better….
Yesterday was sunny and hot. It was time to dug up the watermelon bed and discard the vines and weeds. I thought I should try again with the sweet potatoes. I dug into the raised bed and thought I hit a rock. I dug again. Suddenly, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but…
sweet potatoes! HUGE sweet potatoes!
Two hours and one grubby gardener later, I had a wheelbarrow full of them. Some of these sweet potatoes are more than a foot long. We dragged the bathroom scale down to the garage, piled the potatoes in a box, and weighed it.
79 pounds of sweet potatoes.
They were grown entirely organically, with minimal fuss and maximum beginner’s luck.
To celebrate, I made mashed sweet potatoes last night from some that I accidentally sliced in half with my spade while digging them up. They were delicious, sweet and delicate.
Now they’re all tucked into cardboard boxes, which I lug out of the garage every night and into the sunny yard to let them cure. I hope beginner’s luck carries me through the curing process. There’s nothing like sweet potatoes all year long, and I look forward to storing these in the cellar alongside my bountiful garlic crop.
Success!!!!
Enjoy.