Sweet potato harvest

This happened a few weeks ago, but life has been so busy, I haven't taken time to share here.

We keep an eye on the weather for frost warnings in October for many reasons. One is that we want to give the sweet potatoes as long as possible to grow, but still harvest them before the frost.

So, the second to the last Sunday in October, with frost imminent that week, we decided to break into the straw bale garden. I called my dad to see if he wanted to join us. Their house is 15 minutes away from our farm. 

The kids went out to start the harvest. By the time I got out there, they were finishing up. My dad arrived in time to help them put the harvested sweet potatoes on feed sacks on the bed of the truck to dry. Easiest sweet potato harvest ever!

Good big potatoes from our own slips from last years potatoes.

The sunny side of the straw bale potatoes patch produced much bigger potatoes than the more shaded side. Something to remember for next years garden.

This is how I'm growing all our root vegis from now on!

Arjuna lifted the mat of sweet potato vines and broke open the straw bales beneath.

Love this one.

Robin's flatbed truck makes a good sweet potato drying bed.

One of the big ones. 1.5 pounds

Bigs and littles. My favorites are the fat ones.

Slips and Starts

The sweet potato project is well underway. This winter, my gardening has been indoors. I have the laundry room window full of hopes in the form of sticks in moist dirt. I hope they'll be elderberries and peaches and figs in the future. My kitchen window is blooming with sweet potato slips and Shawn's shop is full of sleeping front porch plants.

The two sweet potatoes creating the slips are ones saved from last year's crop, which was grown from slips given to me by Cynthia. I hope to grow a big crop this year, using strawbale culture for these plants, but it looks like I might have extra, if you need some, I'd be glad to pass along this gift.