Sweet Potato harvest

So I decided to harvest the sweet potatoes today - the nights are getting colder and the one thing sweet pototes don't like is cold. Here is the result of the harvest. Probably I should weigh the lot somehow to take a proper measure of the harvest.



I am going to attempt to grow my own slips for next year, here is my starting piece. Today is day zero of the rooting session.

Sweet potato growth update

On September 5th I took the photos below - the sweet potatoes grew flowers!

Sweet potato growth update

I have high hopes for the sweet potatoes. If my sweet corn squirrel research yields no easy solution, and if the crop of sweet potatoes looks good, this bed may be entirely covered with sweet potatoes next year.

sweet bed

The book 'How to Grow Sweet Potato in a Northern Climate' strongly recommends using a plastic sheet as mulch to greatly increase the temperature of the soil as that is what sweet potato requires. Who am I to question the author who has the experience? Here is the new raised bed, covered. The corn I will be planting by seed in a few days, the potato I will be receiving slips in the mail in a week.

new raised bed

I built a new 5x10' raised bed for the sweet corn and sweet potato which I will be attempting to grow for the first time this spring.