A Fine Crop Of Rocks

The race was on to get my sweet potatoes out of the ground before the real cold arrived. I tried to quit work early on Tuesday. Then it took over an hour to dig one row and there was a long half row left when I ran out of time. I had to dig deep to get them loose. Today I got the rest.

I dug deep and all I got was a whole bunch of rocks.

And long skinny roots that broke in the heavy soil when I tried to lift them. I was digging deep and breaking into the compacted layer of dirt and rocks below my fluffy wood chip enriched top soil. Harvesting potatoes is a great way to turn the soil. Harvesting sweet potatoes is even better and deeper.

Here is the real harvest of purple sweet potatoes. The row I dug on Tuesday were the regular orange variety. The purple ones are definitely more long and skinny than the orange.

Now that I have all these sweet potatoes what am I supposed to do with them? So I went to the internet and started reading.

It seems they need to be cured at 80 degrees in high humidity for a week to ten days to gain sweetness and to seal off wounds to prevent rot before they can go into long term cool storage at 50 degrees. I have dark, dry and 50 degrees. I am low on 80 degrees and humidity though. So for now they are settin by the furnace at around 72 degrees and 45% humidity. That just means it may take more like two weeks for the curing process.

I also read that the purple potatoes are firmer and a bit drier in texture than the regular orange ones and they need a bit more cooking time.

I think sweet potatoes might be best suited to growing in sandier soils. They did want to break easily so I had to be more gentle with them. But hey, this was an experiment and I got a fine crop of sweet potatoes high on the low spot of a North Carolina mountain top where the summer high was 85 once on one day.

The lows have been right at freezing the last couple days. It was spitting snow yesterday afternoon.

It was spitting sleet this evening.

And now I am hearing frozen dried rice pinging on the metal roof of the front porch.

Saturday's low is aiming towards 25. I got my sweet potatoes dug in the nick of time.