Today was a fine day for digging sweet potatoes. Thanksgiving is coming, and the sweet potatoes must be cured and ready to eat. We haven't had a hard freeze to force me to dig them. Plus, we've recently had so many wet days it's been hard to find a weather-appropriate day to do it. I missed the warm, sun-shiny days the weekend we travelled to NYC.I planted an equal number of plants (9) in each of two raised beds. The bed closer to the house produced nicer, more filled-out, tubers. The other bed produced lots of skinny roots... many too small to be edible, and many that I'll call "fingerling" sweet potatoes. Overall, a disappointing harvest. You can be sure that we'll enjoy what we got. The tubers are laid out to cure on a table in the basement.
The difference in the development of the tubers from one bed to the other may have to do with the amount of sun that shone on each bed over the season. But the disappointing harvest may have more to do with when I planted these plants. I didn't put them into the ground until my other potatoes were harvested... July 4. Turns out sweet potatoes need 150 frost-free days to fully develop. Hmmm... mine had 142 frost-free days. I guess the length of the growing season really does matter! Live and learn.
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