when do you harvest your sweet potatoes?

Thu Sep 27, 2012 1:59 am

Very pretty! I like the carpet of heart shaped leaves. All the plants closest to the fence seem to be a bit stunted, the far end and the left side. I would assume that's because they are shaded more by the solid fence.

Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:08 am

If I remember correctly Korean purple has a long maturity date. Those are dark red-violet skinned dry yellow fleshed ones right?

My eyes actually immediately went to the pineapple plant.

Did you grow that from the top of a pineapple? I just dug up, potted up and brought inside two of mine -- last to come inside because they had been planted in the ground this season. They each had a sizeable pup that were no more than a nubbin in spring, so they came in as 4 plants.... Now I have 6 :roll:

Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:02 am

rainbowgardener wrote:Very pretty! I like the carpet of heart shaped leaves. All the plants closest to the fence seem to be a bit stunted, the far end and the left side. I would assume that's because they are shaded more by the solid fence.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what's going on. That's a concrete block wall at the end/left, and it gets pretty much full sun for most of the day. I'm standing facing NE as I took this picture.

My Australian uncle is in town this week, and he was telling me last night about his garden and his sweet potato bed. He says he likes to eat the leaves. I haven't tried that yet, but I've clearly got enough to go around, so I may pick a bunch this weekend.

Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:09 am

applestar wrote:If I remember correctly Korean purple has a long maturity date. Those are dark red-violet skinned dry yellow fleshed ones right?

Sandhill says KP is supposed to be early, so I guess mine are late

Caro Gold is also supposed to be early, and Purple Delight is not listed in their catalog.

But the PDs were a substitute for Yala, which is listed as late.

So my entire bed is growing backwards

My eyes actually immediately went to the pineapple plant.
Did you grow that from the top of a pineapple? I just dug up, potted up and brought inside two of mine -- last to come inside because they had been planted in the ground this season. They each had a sizeable pup that were no more than a nubbin in spring, so they came in as 4 plants.... Now I have 6

Yes! I started 3 in water back in May-ish, and only one ever rooted.

I think I put that one in soil right around the time I planted the sweet potato slips, or around mid-July. It's sitting amidst my sweet potatoes because they're inside a rectangle of bird netting, and something was digging into my pineapple when I left it outside. With such shallow roots I thought the squirrel (or whoever) was going to rip it out and take it away.

Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:40 am

My sweet potato jungles, hoping boosting the heat index under the vented plastic will help:

Seminole pumpkin vines are growing along the left and are also semi-covered, but I saw some powdery mildew spots starting on them this morning after overnight muggy rain.

Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:49 pm

Wait until cold weather kills the vines to harvest the sweet potatoes.

Sat Sep 29, 2012 2:54 pm

Gary350 wrote:Wait until cold weather kills the vines to harvest the sweet potatoes.

What about in warm climes where there is no cold weather?

Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:23 am

Hmm. There's not much going on down there. Saturday was Day 86 since planting the slips, and I've got a nice carpet o' green vines going on, so I did some digging:

I'm digging down about a foot into my double-dug soil, and there's just these tiny little roots.

We got plenty of hot weather this year, and I watered pretty generously at the beginning, but then I backed off quite a bit later, as I didn't want it to get soggy down there. I applied some Liquinox Grow 10-10-5 a few times early, but nothing in the last 6 weeks.

I'm well beyond the 1,200 heat units suggested for sweet potatoes, as "normal" temperatures would put me at about 1,400 right now, but this summer has been unusually hot. Should I just wait longer and start watering again?

Thu Oct 18, 2012 6:42 pm

I plant sweet potatoes about 1st day of April. Frost kills them about last week of Oct. That is 7 months of growing. The mother plant makes the largest potatoes. Every place the vine sprouts roots satellite potates are not as large. I often get 110 lbs of potatoes from 3 or 4 plants. Sweet potatoes like it hot and dry and they don't seen to care if the soil is good or poor. They need full sun too.

Thu Oct 18, 2012 7:13 pm

Thanks! Based on that I'm going let them sit until at least Thanksgiving

How much do you water them?

Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:18 am

TheWaterbug wrote:Thanks! Based on that I'm going let them sit until at least Thanksgiving

How much do you water them?

I don't water my plants we get 300 days of rain here in TN on average every year.

Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:33 pm

well i'll be.... i decided i'd pull up my vines because the weather's been flirting with the low 40's/high 30's on the coldest nights the last few days and my leaves were starting to turn. all season long, i'd been sticking my hand in the dirt poking around and only found one small (about an inch in diameter) sweet potato so i thought the whole effort would be a dud.

little did i know....

i'd pull up all of these!

i started this with one store bought potato, and planted three slips when they were about 6 inches long, all in a 4x4 bed which was already growing an herb and japanese eggplants. the sweet potatoes were sort of an afterthought. this is my first year gardening and I'm just so excited now! great way to end my first season

Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:40 pm

Ooooooh. I'm hoping for a similar surprise. Because right now it's not looking so good

Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:44 pm

it was truly a surprise! fingers crossed your garden will do the same for you. It's just a very small backyard garden I started for fun but I'm thrilled with the results - can't wait to expand and try to do bigger and better next year - maybe i can grow enough taters to share with all the neighbors on my cul de sac next time around

Sun Dec 23, 2012 10:40 am

TheWaterbug wrote:Hmm. There's not much going on down there. Saturday [October 13] was Day 86 since planting the slips, and I've got a nice carpet o' green vines going on, so I did some digging . . . . I'm digging down about a foot into my double-dug soil, and there's just these tiny little roots.

I'd completely ignored these in the ~10 weeks since then, and today I pulled up two of the plants to see if anything had happened:

They're not huge, but they look edible. But they're also cracked everywhere, and several of them are heavily veined. If my notes are correct, these are Caro Golds, and this is what I got from two plants.

The soil is still nice and loose; I pretty much just pulled up on the plant (which is still green and thriving in our 60+ degree December) and the sweets just came with it. I put the plant back in the ground along with the few remaining roots; I wonder if it will keep growing.

I turned off the automatic watering back in October, because we've had more than average rain this year.

So I'm psyched up to eat these tonight. If they're good I'll dig up a bunch more tomorrow.