Sweet Potatoes are ready

Indy, you were right that they didn't need thinning to get bigger. I pulled all of them yesterday and I have one that weighs 5 pounds 9.5 ounces. It's as big as a loaf of bread.

Donna

Wow, that is a huge sweet potato!

Oh my!

Wow is right! Nice 'tater Donna! I think I am going to pull all mine this weekend. The weather is cooling down nicely and I need the bed they have taken over for fall and winter veggies;^) I'll let you know what I get for a harvest!

Kelly

I decided not to wait for the first frost - pulled some sweets over the weekend, and they were delicious!

Honeybee, if I waited until the first frost, I'd be eating monster 'taters at New Years - lol. We rarely get frost here and sweet potatoes are technically a perennial here - lol. If I had the room I'd have a big patch that just keeps growing and growing and growing...

When I was watering last night some soil moved away from the top of the sweet 'taters and there were a couple good sized ones I could see peeking out! Now I really really want to pull them - we love sweet potatoes!

Glad you got some good ones to eat!

Thanks all, I can surely tell you that I was excited. Not real sure how you go about cooking this, but it's still fun to look.

Kelly, as soon as I get them weighed and someplace I can take a picture I'll post to give you the total harvest.

Microwaved a couple of the smaller ones last night and they tasted yummy.

Have fun everyone,
Donna

I would peel that baby and cube it up and them steam or boil it then mash with a little butter and brown sugar - yummy!

This may sound like a silly question but would you bake it at all before you peeled?

Nope - just peel like you would a regular potato or a carrot (though I usually eat mine with the skins on), cut in pieces and boil in water or steam until just tender enough to mash. You could probably micro them with a little water too, but easiest is to boil.

You can bake them too- I like them that way - but that baby is so large it would take a long time to cook - lol.

I like them cut into 1 inch thick slices, brush both sides with olive oil, place on a baking sheet, sprinkle with garlic salt and thyme, bake for about half hour at 350. They are yummy that way.

I've fixed sp many times, many ways and I love about everyway. I honestly don't think I could get a knife thru this one to slice and I'm not sure about the peeling. I think normal size ones can be kinda rough to peel. I always eat the peeling too.

Well I'm not going to worry about it until there's a family gathering. There's no way I'm fixing that here for just us at home.

I think it's great to have problems like this, don't you?

Donna

Yes, those are great problems to have.
We don't peel them before slicing. Freshly dug sps don't have tough skin.
I dug a few large sps yesterday. I need to weigh the biggest ones out of curiosity. I gave a friend one that weighed 3lbs 9oz and I'd broken the end off taking it out of the ground.
I have another whole 40ft row to harvest and have two new rows started (about a month in the ground for one). They're perennial here, but we do have to dig them after a while because the fire ants get into them and ruin the taters.

Donna - did you see the picture of Calalily's taters on another thread? Can't remember where it's at right now but there's some serious taters going on there - lol.

You can save that big 'ol tater for Thanksgiving dinner - lol. Probably enough to feed a small army!

Calalily - I'll have to try cooking the sp that way. Sounds good. Donna - maybe a chainsaw and you could slice that baby right up?!?!? I want to make sp fries too. Never made 'em but ate them at a restaurant once and they were delish!

I've cooked them a lot of different ways and always liked them. I have even cooked them in the microwave then wrapped them in foil for a little while to let them cool down. Next morning the left overs were sliced long ways 3/8 " to 1/2" thick and fried in bacon grease. They are very tasty and go down real easy when fried.

My row of late starters are beginning to swell the ground close to the main stem. Guess they weren't too late after all. I plan to dig them after the next full week of dry weather.

Y'all's 3, 4 & 5 pounders are the best. Y'all did good.

Jerry

Calalily, where's the picture? I would love to see it. This is soooo exciting.

Kelly, I'm half afraid of the chainsaw, but you gave me the idea, how about an electric knife?

I knew we all could figure this out because there are some really good ideas here. I never have weighed anything before. My cousin and myself have a friendly competition going on and he has a scale, so I had to get one. I'm very confident that I won this round. We still have to see on the regular potatoes, because I haven't dug the rest of mine. Bad thing. To busy playing with the sweet potatoes.

Hey Donna - that electric knife just might be your ticket to sweet potato heaven - lol. Never thought of that...

If I can remember where that picture is I'll post a link to it.

Cool beans!!!

Found it! Check out the picture in the first post!

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1012210/#top

Oh my mercy, you just don't get any prettier than that. Calalily, those are great.

I talked with my sp lady and she said if they are too big for one meal to just cut off what you want and leave the rest on the counter and they will heal themselves. She also suggested peeling and baking in a glass dish. When the bottom turns a little brown mash them up in the pan that they had been baking in. The glass dish is so that you can see when it turns brown. I'll give it a shot and let everyone know how they turn out.

Have a great day everyone,
Donna

Okay, I weighed my total today and it was 154.25 pounds. Still haven't taken pictures, been lazy most of the day.

That's a whole lotta taters!

It sure did seem like alot when I was digging them. Most people that I know don't grow them so there's enough for me to share. My neighbor said she had never knew anyone that had grew them before. It's been something that the whole neighborhood has watched because they thought that I had put in lots of flowers this year. It's been a fun year and I'm already looking forward to 2010.

Donna

I only planted 2 vines in my raised beds - it was an experiment. I pulled them today to plant the fall veggies. I got 6 or 7 good sized taters from each vine. I took some pics but need to find the time to download them - lol. They are gonna be for dinner tomorrow night;^)

Next year I will plant probably in May and plant an entire 4' x 4' bed, maybe larger!

I'll try to have some to brag on next year. Right now I'm having a V8 moment. In the middle of summer when nothing much would grow, I could have had sweet potatoes.

That's what I'm talking about - lol. Next year my entire summer garden will be planted with peppers, eggplant, basil and sweet potatoes!

Kelly, if you got 6 or 7 taters from each vine then you already have bragging rights. Are you going to keep a few back to cure?

Donna

You know Donna, I don't think they'll last that long - lol.

DH and my 3 boys and my FIL and me all love them, so they may not last through the week... Already told DH next year watch out - sweet potatoes will be planted in every available spot! They did not mind the Phoenix summer heat at all. Of course they were under the shade structure so not totally full on sun, but we had several days hovering around 115° and they didn't skip a beat!

Kelly, I trully know what you mean. We've had them each night, once with company. I bet I've already used or given away 40 pounds. Trying to get them to the people that had asked for some instead of finding storage space.

The lady that I get my slips from told me about the temps that they could still be happy and it was way up there. I can't remember exactly because it was nothing I had to worry about. I do think that I will cut the vines next year or make sure there's plastic where they roam. This year when I went to cut the vines from the frost they had rooted in the yard.

Still looking forward to pictures.

Donna

Yup - mine were rooting everywhere they touched. There were lots of little ones forming when I pulled them too. Had I been able to wait I would have had beaucoup taters from those 2 little plants - lol. I'll try to find some time to download the pics I took so you can see my little harvest! I can't wait to eat them - lol.

Mine were not in full on sun as they are under a shade cloth with the rest of the garden. My backyard is south/southwest full sun exposure, so without a shade cloth the veggies would be toast. Like I said, they held their own in our summer temps. It's very exciting to me to find something that will grow and thrive in our brutal summers. The eggplant and peppers all limped through and are now putting out fruit like nobody's business - lol. The herbs like oregano and thyme too. Basil grew and grew in the heat no problemo.

I must have the only green in the neighborhood cuz every hornworm for miles around has taken up residence at my house! I walked out to the front yard last night to take the recycle can to the street and there was one on my Cape Honeysuckle that was 4" long and as big around as my husband's finger! How I hate those things - they are so destructive, but still fascinating to look at and this one was actually kinda cute with it's little purple streaks on it's back . . .

We dug the sweetpotatoes today. There were a couple of monsters....the largest was 6 pounds. Many were mid-size which is nice. I have never seen one as big before. They are all O'Henry...light yellow.

I was trying to learn how to grow my own slips and came across this interesting article written by George W. Carver (I know you know this author twiggybuds! lol)

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/recipes/sweetpotatoes.html

You all have grown such wonderful sweet potatoes that I am inspired and determined to make improvements for next year ~ although I still haven't dug up this years trial crop! It's been raining for a week so far.... then I'll be waiting till the soil dries.

Allwild - that is a great article! Thanks for sharing.

I pulled more sweets over the weekend, and my goodness, if the rest of the plants are like this one, hubby and I will be up to our ears in them! I didn't weigh them, but just one plant gave us enough for a week!

We also dug out almost 600 sq. ft of Burmuda grass - there's a small patch left that we'll get to next weekend. I plan to set sweets in this area next year, with perhaps some watermelons. I'm hoping the vines will compete with any grass roots that are still hiding under ground, and that the BG will be gone forever!

You might be whisling Dixie concerning that grass!!


If you use black plastic on your sweetpotatoes and watermelons, the grass will not grow under the plastic It might come up at the edges, but you could use a 10 foot wide piece. When using plastic, some provision needs to be made for watering. I water through the plant holes for sweetpotatoes.

Indy - I know what you mean - Burmuda grass will grow through just about anything. When we started the veggie garden three years ago, we put down black plastic - but the BG grew right through it!

The only way I've found to get rid of BG is to dig it out by hand.

This year, I noticed the sweet potatoes managed to compete with the BG - and win! So I'm hopeful that the 600 sq. ft. area of BG that we dug out over the past couple of weekends will not win the battle with the sweets that I plan to set there next year. (fingers crossed)

I just dug my six hills of Walmart produce dept. sweet potatoes. These were planted early in among the okra. Now to let them cure a couple weeks. Will definately have sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving this year!

Two of the six hills produced about 60-70% of what is in the picture. The sizes range from small to the nicer sizes shown in the picture.

Still have about 15 more hills that were planted way late. The end of October will just barely be 90 days. Hope they make. With as much moisture that is in the ground it wouldn't take much for a good frost. The mornings have been real heavy with dew.

Edit: The slips for these taters went in the ground April 15th (185 days)

Jerry

This message was edited Oct 20, 2009 3:51 PM

Jerry, very nice haul!!!

Dang it! I'm so jealous. A friend brought me 4 small ones and they were so sweet. I meant to keep one for slips but forgot and baked them all. I may have to resort to WM too. I want to grow some but don't have enough room to warrant placing an order.

Do you have any idea why the 2 plants produced so many more than the other 4? Please give me a heads up when you start them next year.

Awesome taters there guys!

I take it these are not the sweet potatoe vines that the nurseries grow in hanging baskets as annual flowers!

(I am admitting I know little to nothing about either actually and well....other than bake them sliced in the oven with marshmallows on top and YUM!)

I have the ornamental" garden variety" in baskets.. not your edibles ...or are they? The gal at the greenhouse said that they would tater...so now I am confused.

I have three varieties.. a maroon leaf called BLACKIE, a maroon and gold leaf name unknown amd a chartruese called Margarita...

Im a guessing these are not the same as your taters above.