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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Sweet Potato harvest
  • Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:55:07 EST


> >Thank you James for this hillarious story! I will think of
> it as we eat our boring Vardamans. Ha ha. Do you have a
> tasty variety you'd recommend?

The first thing you should note from this thread is that I am a sucky sweet
potato grower. I'd use caution listening to anything I have to say about it.

Marie and Gene are more successful than I am and I think I've got a lot of
reviewing of my sweet potato husbandry at this point.

How-some-ever, there is a variety grown extensively in South Carolina (that
does you a lot of good, doesn't it?) called by the local produce guys
"Spanish
Purple". It has bright white flesh and stark purple skin. They start them
in hot houses in SC which is much warmer than here and then they are
available
in the early spring. They are long season and against all odds, I cut some
into disks and plant them. I've gotten a small crop almost every time but it
is
a race with cool weather.

Two things have enhanced the yield. First is plastic tunnels to mulitply the
heat early in the season. The second one is perhaps something you haven't
seen in the gardening literature. Have you ever read Chenua Achebe's "When
Things Fall Apart" in which there is a description of yam growing in Nigeria?

Sweet potatoes are not yams (and vice-versa), but they both employ sprawling
vines. In the book is the description of putting up trellises and training
the
vines up them to make a sort of solar sail, a lot of vine in a small space.
I
save some branched brushwood that is too short or too stocky for pea supports
and push them in the ground in the sweet potato mounds, then train some of
the
vines to climb them. The added solar collector gives bigger tubers.

If you can't find that variety, I might try sending you a few in the spring.





>> Straw is not
> sold here, and all the hay is Bermuda, a foe of the
> garden. Bales of alfalfa are available, but not cheap.
>
>
Any horse whackos there abouts? If so, what do they use for bedding? The
spent bedding rots up to a nice acidity.



James





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