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Post by macmex on Oct 8, 2022 6:31:44 GMT -6
I watered beforehand and that helped a bit. Jerreth was digging last night, as I sorted and gathered roots (between chores). She commented when she came to a part of the row which was bone dry that it was like digging through powder. She was literally brushing soil away from clusters of roots and pulling up entire clusters. That was not my experience a couple of days ago!
Anyone who hasn't tried a white fleshed sweet potato really should. A couple years ago the Seed Savers Exchange interviewed me and Glenn Drowns on sweet potato preservation. It was interesting that he and I got into it for different reasons. I came across Red Wine Velvet in a farmers' market and kept it going, gradually realizing that "someone had to do it." As I went I accumulated more varieties, often receiving them from Glenn. I got attached to these "old friends." Glenn, on the other hand realized that so few were doing the work of preservation with sweet potatoes that he jumped in and started looking for every variety he could find, adding them to his collection, which of course, is added to his sales inventory. Glenn had introduced the first purple fleshed sweet potato to the commercial market, some 30 years ago. He commented that when he started selling it almost no one was interested in it. Now, the purples are extremely popular with the health conscious. Toward the end of the interview we were both asked what we would suggest to someone just getting into growing sweet potatoes. I believe we both said that such a gardener would want to try an assortment of colors and textures, in order to find their preferences. Additionally we both suggested that they try a white fleshed variety.
My favorites are generally white fleshed. Around 100 years ago the standard American sweet potato was white fleshed. Someone decided to promote orange flesh for health reasons (higher vitamin A content). While this is all fine, there's still plenty of nutrition in white fleshed varieties.
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Post by macmex on Oct 8, 2022 6:38:01 GMT -6
Red Wine Velvet is one of our most dependable varieties, and as June noted, it is also fairly easy to dig. I always plant a lot of them as Jerreth loves to give sweet potatoes to friends, whether it be in a meal she serves or in a brown paper bag she takes to work with her. Inevitably, she asks me to get Red Wine Velvet. Just last year, however, she added a new one to her favorites list: Japanese White. Hopefully we'll get into them today.
If one is growing sweet potatoes with the main purpose of producing lots of food, then these two are top on my list. As I write, however, I realize that one can get a really good crop from others such as Ginseng Orange, Becca's Purple and Grand Asia.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 8, 2022 14:50:25 GMT -6
I read your linked thread about Japanese White, macmex . I hope you end up with a good harvest of them. The Red Wine Velvet looks beautiful. All the sweet potato harvesting going on makes me want to dig mine, but I’m resisting because I put them in so much later that they need more time to size up. Actually I should say that I’m mostly resisting. I did dig two plants this morning. One was a volunteer that popped up this spring right beside an olla. I wanted to stop watering it, so I dug around to see what I could find. It gave me a couple of small roots. Another was a vine that was dying. I’m not sure why. It had a few even smaller roots. It’s too dry here for good curing, so I’ll stick these in my oven (when it’s not on) with a pan of warm water to add moisture and leave them there so that they have a more humid environment. That has worked well for me in the past, and this should make a good sized dish for my family. My other sweet potatoes will stay in the ground to size up for now. I have no worries about frost for at least a few weeks and possibly much longer.
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Post by macmex on Nov 1, 2022 13:52:14 GMT -6
Yesterday I finally finished digging sweet potatoes!
This is a picture of one hill's yield of High Orange, a relatively new variety to me.
Yields were not very good this year but we did get back enough for some good eating and to start new slips of most. I may have lost Hopi, due to a mix up.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 1, 2022 16:30:38 GMT -6
Those look great to me, macmex. Considering all the factors that have been against you this year, including cows, I think you have done a spectacular job. I'd be happy as all get out to dig up a hill like that...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 1, 2022 19:01:00 GMT -6
George,
It's great to hear that you got your potato harvest in. Those are beautiful! Your sweet potatoes look a thousand times better than mine did this year. None of mine grew to be bigger around than a quarter.
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 1, 2022 21:10:42 GMT -6
Ive been away from the ol computer all day and just look what i missed! All of those look great!
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Post by Bon on Nov 4, 2022 23:14:35 GMT -6
Oklahoma Red stole the show with more than 50 lbs. I have an orange and also a white with some harvest, enough for continuances.
Thank God for sweet potatoes!
Bon
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 5, 2022 8:09:18 GMT -6
Excellent news, Bon. Glad to hear you got a good harvest of the Oklahoma Red and can continue your other two lines as well.
Last night for part of our supper we ate the few sweet potatoes that I had harvested about a month ago. They had cured well and made a good side dish. The rest of the sweet potatoes are still in the ground, though I may check on some of the earlier plantings later on today depending on how other work goes.
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Post by macmex on Nov 8, 2022 14:20:56 GMT -6
I was forgetting that I had a few more to dig. At work I planted some ornamental/edible sweet potatoes. They're expensive and it's not legal to propagate them for sale, so I don't sell slips. Still, I've kept them going at work in our gardens.
Well, today I remembered to bring a fork to work and dig them. Temps this weekend are supposed to get really cold and it's already past time to dig these. Here's a picture of the first plant I dug.
The maroon leaved variety did much better in terms of root production. That's the one which produced orange colored roots. The lime green variety produced a fraction of what the other did. Still, it was very beautiful.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 8, 2022 17:14:00 GMT -6
They look great, macmex. Congratulations on a terrific sweet potato harvest this year in spite of all things against it...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 10, 2022 19:31:15 GMT -6
That was a beautiful ornamental bed, macmex. It’s fun that you get sweet potatoes in the bargain. I harvested all my sweet potatoes today, and it was a disappointing harvest given the number of slips I planted. I ended up with less than 10 pounds. Even though I watered very faithfully all summer long, I think the drought must have taken its toll. I did put lots of nice vines (chopped a bit with hand pruners) into my compost bins. These two containers represent two areas of harvest. The bottom (large cake pan) container holds everything I harvested from my garden beds. Many of the slips just made one or at most two roots. Some didn’t make any unless I just did a really bad job digging. It was really discouraging to cut out all those vines and dig through all that good soil and just not see the production I would have had in other years. The upper container (the cookie sheet) is really a bonus harvest of roots, so I’m actually pretty happy about that. When I started all my slips this spring, I used cuttings of sprouted sweet potatoes and put them in a large-self watering planter. When the vines got long enough that I couldn’t water it well in the planter, I dumped it out in a (not garden) bed in the backyard where I could use the vines for ground cover. It got lots of afternoon sun and got watered just about every day. It yielded the largest potatoes from that tiny (about 3 square feet, I think) chunk of soil that was just sitting in a hollow in my mulched bed. Those mother plants had a significant head start and really good access to water for a good long while when they were in the self watering planter, but they outproduced all my carefully tended garden-planted slips. I have the potatoes in my oven right now (not on and with instruction for no one to use the oven now). I boil water in a tea kettle from time to time and add that in a separate pan to increase the humidity. If I’m faithful in replacing the hot water from time to time, it helps them cure a bit faster. I could possibly have some on the Thanksgiving table. It depends on what else I make. (I don’t do too many dishes at once, so if I make a pumpkin soup, I won’t have sweet potatoes.)
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Post by woodeye on Nov 10, 2022 21:39:29 GMT -6
That's still a nice batch of sweet potatoes, chrysanthemum. And a cool story about the bonus sweet potatoes, and very good to know that your method worked so well...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 11, 2022 21:05:29 GMT -6
I don't know how I missed these most recent posts, but it sure makes me happy to see the results of this past season's efforts!
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Nov 19, 2022 15:13:35 GMT -6
My white potato harvest included two 5 inch roots with a center DIA of no more than 2 inches. I fear they will be spent by next year.
Would it be best to pot them?
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