Planting Sweet Potatoes
The potato harvest was kind of a rushed deal. The heat came on rather suddenly this year and has only backed down into the 90s for a few days at a time so we had to get the spuds out fast before they rotted.
Besides the many meals of homegrown chicken, salad, and potatoes we enjoyed, I canned most of that harvest up and we ordered sweet potato slips to fill in the field. I say field but it is only a field in our world of hand-dug and slow-but-steady. In reality, it held about 225 sweet potato slips.
We planted a bunch more in the other garden spaces available and ended up with around 300 in the ground. Sweet potatoes are one of those crops that does well despite the heat – or maybe because of it – so we are thankful for the space and slips going into the ground during this tough gardening year.
One of the boys, during the week we spent sweating it out in the potato field hilling up potatoes in April, made an astute observation. Between strokes with the hoe he said “Ya know, you don’t have to hill up sweet potatoes!“. Even though it might have come at a moment of fatigue, it is true… and the timing of harvesting each of these calorie-rich crops might make it possible to grow both every year. And they are both well-loved by the whole family in just about every form.
Plus, these hard-working boys sure can pack away the milk and (sweet) potatoes. And I am very grateful for all of the hard work these three put into working this homestead of ours every single day.
Hello,
My family and I were just today prepping to plant the sweet potato sprouts we’ve been working on from some organic sweet potatoes we bought. We’re just hoping for the greens this year and if we happen to have sweet potatoes as well we’ll feel really blessed. Last year we harvested over 145 pounds of sweet potatoes from our 18″x30′ raised bed. However, after we cured the harvest and found out that there was such a thing as the sweet potato weevil (and we had to toss or trim away the rot from a lot of the harvest) our yield was considerably less. This spring God spoke to our family to transition to a whole foods plant-based diet (from a whole foods diet that relied heavily on animal products.) Our obedience to His Word has yielded better health for my husband and I (we’ve lost a total of about 60 pounds so far, my husband’s seasonal allergies have disappeared, as well as his constant sinus/throat/mucous problems), and all seven of the family has experienced an increase in overall wellness, energy, and health as we’ve stayed well while many of our close friends in church have battled colds/etc with their families. Based on what our friends tell us, that part where Daniel and the other Hebrew Children’s faces shown after not partaking of the king’s meat for the 10 days is real! But anywho…so sweet potatoes are now even a bigger part of our diet than previously. We live in Rosebud, about 35 miles south of Waco on 77, and I guess we definitely live in a sweet potato weevil area. Have you had any problems with this pest in your area and if so, what has worked for you to manage or even get rid of them?
Blessings on your family from another Pilgrim in Progress!
Hi Noemi! I can’t say that we have had any pest problems when it comes to sweet potatoes. All thanks to the Lord, of course! I say that but we didn’t have any squash bugs until this year either and they annihilated every squash or similar plant in our entire garden. And aren’t the greens great from sweet potatoes?
I planted sweet potatoes a week or so back but I had three of my daughter’s sweet potatoes that I had chopped into thirds and set to root. I ended up with over a hundred slips from those three potatoes and just planted those over the weekend. The first batch I planted have taken over a huge area in our back garden and my daughter said wherever the vines land and take root, those will also produce sweet potatoes. I am very excited. This year, we planted the yard long green beans as well as the regular green beans. We plant three kinds of peas, lima beans, pinto beans, and navy beans. They are all putting on little pods. This year, our peppers have produced like crazy. I’ve canned, pickled, and even frozen more than enough for us and still have sold quiet a few at our road side vegetable stand. I hope your sweet potatoes do as well as my daughter’s did last year. She gave the three to me to root for slips and today she brought over a bag full of sweet potatoes that survived in her root cellar. I canned them because I cannot stand to waste food. I always can the regular potatoes that we don’t eat right away because they go bad so quickly. I also dry them for potato flakes and dice some to throw in soups. The potato flakes are wonderful to add to just about anything you need to thicken up.
Jeannie – Now potato flakes sounds intriguing! How do you make them and how do you use them? I am picturing those instant mashed potato flakes – are they similar? Thanks for the always-inspiring comments!