The Sweet Life: Growing and Harvesting Sweet Potatoes

You guys.

We have so many sweet potatoes.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s so great to have them for meals and I am having a lot of fun trying all sorts new things with them.

Seriously. I have not even cooked the same thing twice with them.

I have run them through the spiralizer making baked curly fries. I have added them to frittata’s as a crust. I have mashed them. Roasted them. Tossed them in with scrambled eggs. I have even made them into chips.

I even found myself, mid shower no less, wondering if sweet potato risotto is a thing. (Don’t judge. I am a pregnant foodie. I think about food everywhere… even the shower.)

Sure enough, it is.  This recipe was dinner this past Friday to satisfy the craving and the curiosity.

And, I would be lying if I didn’t also say, with the hopes of putting another slight dent in the 150 pounds of sweet potatoes we harvested this fall.

Yep.  150 pounds.

When I purchased two pots of slips at a roadside farm stand this summer I was hopeful, but could have never imagined yielding so many sweet potatoes come fall.

Sweet potatoes don’t grow from seeds like other plants, but rather from slips, or shoots that are grown from mature sweet potatoes.  You can easily order slips online, or just keep your eyes peeled at the farmer’s market, nursery’s or farm stands in the late spring.

And, in true gardener’s paradox, our largest yielding vegetable of Garden 2015 is the one we gave the least amount of energy, time and love.

Sweet potato slips will actually try to thrive, and will likely be successful, no matter where they are planted, dropped, left, whatever, so long as the soil is warm and moist. However, they need a large area for their roots and vines to roam. A little natural fertilizer in the soil and weeding in the first few weeks of growing sweet potatoes will help them be even more successful.

Sweet potatoes like it hot and take a long time to grow basking in the summer’s heat. But, if it is dry you should be sure to water them occasionally. We planted our sweet potatoes in early June and water was no issue this summer.

As easy as it was to plant and grow the sweet potatoes, harvesting and storing them took a little more thought.

Sweet potatoes are ready for harvest when the vines begin to yellow in mid-autumn.

For us, we kept an eye on them and had varying opinions about what was “truly yellow.” We wanted to to this before the first frost, but also while there was still heat during the day because the potatoes need to cure for about ten days in order to bring out their sweetness.

Finally, we decided on a morning in mid-October to head out to the sweet potato beds with a garden fork and get to work. The potatoes varied in size from typical to long and thin to down right huge. Adam was cautious when digging them up so not to stab or bruise them.

I brushed the excess dirt off the potatoes and placed them in large potato sacks to cure. (The ones in the photo above.) Curing the potatoes not only locks in the sweetness but helps to heal any scratches and bruising. We cured the potatoes for two weeks in our garage as it is suggested to keep them in a warm, humid location.

(Adam and I couldn’t help but agree that a greenhouse would be great for this… Maybe next year!)

After curing for two weeks we moved the potatoes to our unfinished basement where it is always cool and dark. It’s not as ideal as an actual root cellar, but it’s the closest we could get.

And, three months later, it’s obviously still working great because they are on the menu once at week.

They should last another three months in this location.

That is, if we don’t finish them first!