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Gary350
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 7415
- Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
- Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.
19 lbs of Sweet Potatoes from the Garden.
I dug up 19 lbs 2 ounces of sweet potatoes today. This is not the 100 lbs of potatoes I usually get from the garden but more than enough potatoes for us. About 45 of the largest potatoes came from the 2 mother plants. All the rest of the potatoes are satellite potatoes that grew every place the vines touch the soil and grow roots. Spring was crazy weather non stop rain every day for 3 months potatoes were an after thought only place to plant these were under a shade tree. They only got 4 hours of full sun every morning all summer. It has not rained since Aug 15th. Sweet potatoes love full sun so shade was probably the biggest problem. I don't usually dig my sweet potatoes until frost kills the vines but I decided if it rains I do not want to be crawling in 30 degree mug looking for potatoes. Weather man says frost day after tomorrow.
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Gary350
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 7415
- Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
- Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.
Only way I like sweet potatoes is, sweet potato casserole. Boil the potatoes and remove the skin. Mash with butter and brown sugar. Some people mix in raisins and nuts. Look up sweet potato casserole there are lots of variations of the recipe.imafan26 wrote:very nice. How do you use them?
Sweet potatoes are in the squash family they have no carbohydrates like white potatoes.
You can cook sweet potatoes like squash, slice with onion cook in the skillet or steam in the steamer or boil in a pot. You can also make sweet potato french fries. Cut the uncooked potatoes in small 1/2" cubes put them in salads.
Another good recipe is, put sweet potato casserole over a breakfast waffle with butter and maple syrup. Some people like to spread it over the waffle like jelly on toast. Some people put a scoop of sweet potato casserole on the center of the waffle with butter and maple syrup.
Sweet potatoes are easy to dig up. I slide my hands over the soil following the vines. When I come to a place where the vine sprouted roots there is often 1, 3, 5, 7 potatoes there. I push my fingers into the soil and pull potatoes out. The mother plant will grow a 15 to 30 large sweet potatoes, soil will bulge up like a volcano 4" high and be soft like it was tilled and all the soft soil was pushed back into the hole with the potatoes. I pull the potatoes up by hand. There will also be several potatoes that are hiding. I slide my hands over the soil if I feel the tip end of a potato I pull it up. Most of the potatoes are near the surface. When I think I have found all the potatoes I run the tiller through the soil fairly quick and about 20 more small potatoes pop up. Then I run the tiller through the soil several times and maybe I find 1 more potato.
Sweet potatoes are very interesting low maintenance plants. Plant them and let them be. They love full sun all day and the hotter it gets the better they like it. It is easy to plant 2 or 3 plants in the center of a 10 foot circle, turn the vines once a week to make them grow in a clock wise circle. If vines get out of control cut them short. If you want a lot of potatoes then plant in rows with potato plants 2 feet apart, keep all the vines in the 2 foot wide 50 ft long row. Vines will sprout roots any place they touch the soil, you can double the number of satellite potatoes by covering the vines with soil in several places to make them grow more roots. I plant in spring after the last frost about April 20 if I can then let them grow until frost kills them in November. They are easy to grow even if you have a short growing season. Spring we had rain every day for 3 months my garden got planted a month late. We had no rain this year after Aug 15 and still no rain in the forecast. There were a lot of potatoes in the soil in Aug.