Sweet Potato Harvest 2021

[macmex]

Well, yesterday evening I finally started to dig sweet potatoes. I have two 80' rows to dig. I dug about 5' of the far end of one row. The harvest there was okay. I think I needed to have irrigated for 16 hours a week, instead of eight, as apparently the water didn't get to the far end of the drip tape, as it should have. Still, the harvest at the far end was still acceptable. I've seen much much worse. Probably, yield per plant will go up as I work my way toward the water supply.

I'm struggling to make time to do almost anything in the garden these days just because my time is so taken up on doing what the doctors have told me to do for my memory issues. This has to happen, however, and it has to happen in the next several weeks. It helps that I cut forage for our rabbits and goats every afternoon. For the next few weeks they'll be "living high" on sweet potato vines. Everyone was euphoric last night, when I gave them sweet potato vine instead of regular weeds.

Sensei, our newest livestock guardian dog accompanied me into the garden for the first time, last night. He's only about 16 weeks old, but huge. I think he weighs about 37 pounds now and is really floppy and silly. He "helped" with digging sweet potatoes. I could only do it with him knowing that everything is going to be dug up very soon. I'd cut the vines and start hauling them to my wheelbarrow. Sensei would grab an end and start playing tug of war with me. I'd dig. He'd dig too! I had to rescue a couple of roots, as he would have used them as chew toys.




I managed to dig four plants of Red Wine Velvet. This almost filled a five gallon bucket with roots. Roots were in the 1-2 lb range, which is smaller than usual, but I believe that's because they didn't receive as much irrigation as they should have. If correct, I should find yields go up as I get closer to the source of the irrigation. Those plants will have received more water.

This size root is what most people prefer. I like them a lot, but I usually aim for roots about twice that size. Not that I prefer to cook really large roots. I just like larger yields. Large sweet potato roots are never tough. They just take a bit longer to bake.

This year I have an ideal place to cure my sweet potato roots: the greenhouse. Temps in the greenhouse should still, easily top 100 F. every afternoon.
Here's a picture of last night's harvest.



I also wrote about this over on the Sweet Potato Network.

[hmoosek]

I’ve only grown sweet potatoes a couple of times. Both times I started my own slips from store bought taders. It’s probably not the best way, but it’s what I did. My black land soil isn’t really suited, but they didn’t do too bad. I’ve even grown peanuts here which several folks told me I couldn’t do. I knew it could be done because my Uncle had done so previously.

[macmex]

Growing slips from supermarket sweet potatoes works. One just should leave a little extra time to for the roots to sprout, as they are generally treated with a growth inhibitor. Usually one ends up with Beauregard, which is a high producing variety.


Article on starting slips from sweet potatoes obtained in the fall

I would think your soil should work well for sweet potatoes. The only soil I've heard of which gave them trouble was too high in nitrogen.

[hmoosek]

Oh I just noticed your puppy! How precious!

[macmex]

Yesterday I ran out of day before I could dig any sweet potatoes. Here's a photo of the harvest so far. This is four five gallon buckets of Red Wine Velvet. The harvest is looking good. So far have only found one rodent damaged root.

[chrysanthemum]

Congratulations, macmex! Those look beautiful.

Your puppy is adorable, too. What breed of guardian dog is he?

[macmex]

He's half Sarplaninac and half Great Pyrenees, with maybe a small percentage of Anatolian Shepherd. He's a delightful little (not so little) fellow, though entering into the hard headed stage much earlier than most. Yesterday he decided to tear up my Nopal Cactus, while in the garden. Then he wouldn't come when I called. I ended up carrying him back to his pen for a time out. I think he's nearly 50 lbs now!

[hank]

Sweet potato harvest 10-9-21

[macmex]

Nice! Red Wine Velvet and Ginseng Orange?

[macmex]

Yesterday I didn't manage to dig any more sweet potatoes. Sunday afternoon I did dig some. I'm currently digging Grand Asia, which is one of my very favorites. Grand Asia is a red skinned, white fleshed variety, fairly typical of many of the types found around the Pacific Rim, including Mexico. The #1 sweet potato grown in Mexico is called Morado, which simply means "red," or "of color." To me, Grand Asia and Morado are identical. It's a very heavy producer which I really like, sometimes out producing more typical types by two or three times. This one takes longer to really cure, in storage. It takes a bit to develop its full sweetness, and, to be honest, it's not quite as sweet as the typical American sweet potato. Yet its flavor is really nice. The flesh is pretty dense. I find Grand Asia to be a very satisfying sweet potato when baked and eaten, skin and all, with no additional sweetening.




Here's a picture of the largest sweet potato, so far, of 2021. It's a Grand Asia. Molokai might yet beat it.



Back around 2015 I started having an orange flesh sport of Grand Asia, crop up in my stock. At first I tried growing it, excited about possibly getting a "Grand Asia" with more vitamin A. After a couple of years I decided to discontinue that venture. The sport was inferior in flavor and texture. It wasn't worth keeping. Then I found that the sport was cropping up in my stock as much as the original (white) version. Last year I nearly ordered a new start from outside, to reestablish my stock. Instead, I made careful effort to separate the yellow fleshed sports from my white fleshed Grand Asia roots. Then, in the spring, when starting slips I chose only a very few roots, and cut each one, to assure its interior color. 

So far, every root I've dug has been white fleshed!

[chrysanthemum]

I thought I saw Grand Pyrenees in him, but the black face threw me. I’ll have to look up the other breeds you mentioned.

Those Grand Asia roots look just beautiful. I’m sure you’re very pleased to have been able to select back to your white-fleshed genetics. Congratulations on a job well done.

[macmex]

Life has been complicated lately. Still, about every other day I've managed to dig more sweet potatoes. That's my recreation and means of relaxation. The other day I was digging sweet potatoes and lost track of what I was digging. I keep record of what I planted and where, but I was tired and confused. I started unearthing these big, red/purple, blockly roots and was puzzled, "What is this?"


After a bit I looked more closely at my notes and realized that this is Japanese White or Satsume Aimo, which I obtained in March, while visiting my daughter in Anchorage, Alaska. I dug 6 of these plants, thrilled with the harvest they gave me. Then, looking at my notes I realized I had put in another SEVEN of the same variety, over on the next row! Woohoo! 

Here's a link to a thread I started on it, over on the Sweet Potato Network.

[hmoosek]

Those look awesome!

[heavyhitterokra]

I love it when I find things that I forgot that I planted!

Today, we took a walk to the garden to look for persimmons and I found a small basket worth of ripe tomatoes that I had forgotten about. In my head, the tomatoes were done for the year, so I never looked over that way again. Then, today, I noticed something red amongst the jungle of tomato foliage. Like George said earlier, "Woo Hoo!"

[macmex]

Yesterday I was delighted to harvest my first Hawaiian Purple (a.k.a. Okinawa Purple) sweet potatoes. Had a horrible time getting my roots to sprout and, in the end, only got two slips to put in the ground. Among mainland growers this one is known to be difficult, producing large vines and few useable roots. Descriptions generally read something along this line with the comment, "probably needs more heat and a rich volcanic soil." Well, we don't hav volcanic soil (Can you imagine Oklahoma with volcanos?!) but we have HEAT. I generally don't fertilize sweet potatoes at all, but for these I did put in a few scoops of rabbit manure and composted barn scrapings. The harvest wasn't real large, but the roots were all of a nice size. I'm looking forward to planting more in 2022. Maybe this is one which will produce acceptably in Oklahoma!


This is my total crop of Okinawa Purple for 2021. I won't even eat one of these, rather choosing to use all for "seed" in the coming year.


This is the color of the uncooked interior. It gets darker when cooked.

Unlike Molokai and Becca's Purple, Okinawa Purple is overtly sweet, albeit with that dense texture typical of some Asian types. I love it. Even more telling, my wife, who almost never wavers from her demands for Red Wine Velvet, quickly adopted this one as a favorite. I brought enough back from Alaska, in March for her to try before I used the rest for trying to make slips.