how do you harvest your sweet potatoes?

[Raggedyman]

we have typically harvested our sweet potatoes by manually digging them - one hill at a time - using a 5 prong fork and starting about 3 feet away from the hill. that can be incredibly labor intensive - typically taking an entire day from start of the dig to having them ready to cure.


is that how you do it?


is there a better way?

[Martinhouse]

I grew sweet potatoes a few years afo where the chickens had run and from two plants that survived, I got about three-quarters of a bushel of mini-footballs.

I tried growing sweet potatoes in my greenhouse containers this year and they gave me the equivalent of two fat carrots and a bunch of thick roots. Maybe a pound in all from seven slips. I'm not sure why this happened. They were from a grocery store tuber that spent the previous winter in a plastic produce bag on my kitchen counter. I was surprised to get nothing at all.

Does anyone know if maybe the ones from the store might be hybrids that don't make more good ones? I suspect it might have been poor conditions as the containers were plenty big...55 gallon plastic barrels cut in half, but the dirt was quite packed.

Oh! The few I grew I dug by hand by digging deep and turning with a spade and then raking through the dirt with my spud hoe (potato rake). This would be exhausting if I grew a lot, but no problem for just a few plants.

[summerthyme]

The problem definitely isn't "hybrids", as when you grow something from slips, they are essentially a clone of the original plant.

It's possible that the variety just wasn't right for your area, or the combination of greenhouse temps and containers didn't suit them. Had the vines died down before you harvested them?

Summerthyme

[Martinhouse]

Summerthyme, the vines had not died back but were starting to yellow at the center of the plants. I knew they might not be quite what they could be, but I was certainly expecting a little more than the nothing I got from them. The vines were gorgeous. I think the dirt was packed too hard.

I would have left them until a frost had they been outdoors, but I had 36 kale plants that were outgrowing their six packs and needed planting. I had to dig out some dirt as I was adding newer better dirt so it was a matter of time. And the kale is more important to me than sweet potatoes, which I loathe...these would have been for the chickens and maybe the rabbits had they done well. Good to know about the slips being "clones". I'd sort of thought this would be the case, but wasn't sure. I always buy two or more sweet potatoes in the fall so I will have them for spring if SHTF before then and I can't get them any more.

There are still two sweet potato plants in outdoor containers to dig. I'm waiting for a frost and for a long enough break in the rain so I'm not digging in mud. These are in big containers so I'm not worried about them rotting but I hate harvesting any root crops when the ground isn't fairly dry.

[Martinhouse]

Here's something I learned about growing sweet potatoes. They can be thirsty when the dry part of summer hits. If you have to conserve water and not use a sprinkler on an entire area, it helps to have a stake right where you' planted each slip so you can tell exactly where to direct the stream of water or carry the pail of water. Later this is helpful when knowing just where to dig, especially if you make sure to put each stake at the very same side of every plant.