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  • From: Allan Balliett <allan.balliett AT gmail.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Frost Damaged Sweet Potato Vines
  • Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 08:18:09 -0400

I have a similar question on sweet potatoes.

We have always left them in the ground until the first frost and then dug them immediately (I've always been told that the 'rot' of the blackened tops will move into the spuds underground rapidly and you'll lose them. Never have trialed this, have always dug them.) Frosts have been getting later the last few years. We haven't had our usual Oct 1 frost 'yet' At the same time, though, the sweet potatoes went in the ground maybe two wks later this year due to rain problems at the slip farm.

I dug some spuds a week ago and, sad to say, they were almost entirely 6 to 8 inch long index finger size. Pretty disappointing. Have left them in the ground hopingthey will fatten up before they have to be harvested.

My soil thermometer is stuck on 60degrees (I mean literally stuck, broken, and I haven't bought a new one yet)

Someone told me yesterday that sweet potatoes totally stop growing when daytime temps fall below 80.

I guess this has never been my belief and, obviously, soil temps are everything.

Is 55 degrees in the soil the end of sweet potato growth?

Thanks

Allan in WV where we haven't seen the sun in so long that all my solar fence chargers stopped yesterday (They are good ones on big deep cycle batteries. This has NEVER happened before)


On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 9:16 PM, Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net> wrote:
If the weather warms back up so the ground will stay fairly warm, you have a few days, at any rate. But they won't keep if the ground gets too cold. Get them out of there before the soil temperatures drop. I have harvested them several days after the frost killed the vines, though, and not had problems, as long as soil stayed fairly warm.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



On Sep 15, 2011, at 8:36 PM, grizzdover AT gmail.com wrote:

Hello All,
 
Last night we got hit by a frost.  While it didn't do "too much" damage (myself and my crew were thrilled to stop picking bush beans : ) ), it got my sweet potato field in a lower area of the farm.  From what I saw there was about 75% die back in the vines.  What I'm wondering is, with this amount of damage, how quickly should I get them dug?  I've reluctantly had to leave other crops in the field ( onions, shallots, potatoes, etc.) after they've died back with "good" harvests, but never had to "experiment" with sweet potatoes before.
 
Thanks in advance,
 
Ben Saunders
Turtle Farm Certifed Organic Fruits, Veggies and Herbs
Granger, Iowa


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