Those sure look nice. I may have to cut sweet potatoes off my list next year because it is so hard to dig them.

I can also relate to the storage problem. We have stored about 50 butternut and Seminole pumpkins. Our sweet potatoes are still on the porch. I will still have to give produce away because the lack of storage space, but like you say, Its a problem I can live with.

Looks wonderful! That sounds like a truly exceptional harvest.
I am behind. Still have to start digging ours. We have about 86' of them.

George
Tahlequah, OK

There's a "Church Lady" or three who stop by the garden now and then. We do a little bit of tradin' with them. Plus, the produce stand down the way takes some of our extra produce, and we trade a bit there. Got a Hubbard squash in partial trade, today.

Still, we've got four hills of sweet potatoes to dig up before too long. Might be another wheel barrow full of sweet taters to store somewhere, yet.

Well, you got me going on our sweet potatoes and now... Jerreth, my wife got involved. We're "going to get them all TODAY!" Just taking a break at the moment. So far, this is the best looking harvest I've seen in at least 4 or 5 years.

Here's the largest, so far; a Red Wine Velvet.

Here's a nice looking bunch of Red Wine Velvet.

That looks like some good eatin', to me. Max.

We're being rained on, at the moment, here in Duncan. Drizzlin' to a stop, now.

George, I love the looks of those velvet potatoes.

Wow wished I live closer I'd take some off your hands!! Great harvest!!

Yesterday I worked on digging some Cordner's Red, a variety which became available through our own Gary Schaum (Duck Creek Farms). Seems like a really good variety. I noted that all of the roots were located directly below the plant, pointing downward like a bunch of bananas. The roots were also quite uniform. Yield was excellent. Brinkley White, on the other hand had a rough year. I'm glad I have more experience with Brinkley White, as I know that some years it is my top producer. Brinkley White is actually light yellow (creamy) colored. It is an excellent flavored sweet potato.

George

Cordner's Red

Thought I posted a message here a couple days ago...wonder what happened to it. It was a question for George. We dug the Red Wine Velvets and some of them look good, but several of them have dark splotches on the skin, some covering almost all of the tater. Is it environmental damage or a disease? It hadn't frosted here when we dug them. Another variety was really ugly, with large roots with checkered splits, but I think that was uneven watering. They seem to be ok inside, but they are sure ugly, not at all as beautiful as yours.

Dorothy,

We had a few of those with the dark splotches. My understanding is that this is cold damage. We hadn't had a hard frost. But we had cold and especially some really cold rains. In my experience the sweet potatoes with the dark splotches actually keep fairly well. But I use them as soon as I can, just to be safe.

George

Well, I'm struggling to keep up with all the things "I have to get done." But I did dig another two varieties of sweet potatoes this last Saturday. One (Cordner, not to be confused with Cordner's Red) didn't do well at all. Here's a picture:

It looks almost as if it was overloaded by nitrogen. But I don't believe I did anything different in the part of the row where Cordner grew. On either side of it were varieties which did exceedingly well.

The other, Grand Asia did amazingly well. The roots were mainly very large, and there were A LOT of them. This variety is similar to the native sweet potato we knew when we lived in HIdalgo Mexico, which was called "Camote Morado," translated, "Purple Sweet Potato." I am cooking one of them now in order to say how they taste. Camote Morado was drier than most American cultivars and if not cooked just right, it wasn't very sweet. But when cooked slowly it could be sweet and very delicious. I requested Grand Asia from Duck Creek Farms, last year, because we miss the sweet potatoes we had in Mexico. The largest root of Grand Asia weighed in at 4 lb, and that was from a late planting!

Here's a picture of Jerreth holding two clusters (from two plants) of Grand Asia.

Wow, George, that's a great harvest. I love the photo of Jerreth holding up those big handfuls of sweet potatoes.

After I stopped watering the garden in August, my sweet potatoes died. I knew they probably would, but it didn't make sense at that point to keep watering because the relentless heat and drought made it impossible to water enough to keep anything producing. If it looks like our drought conditions are continuing in 2014, I'll have to plant sweet potatoes in pots like I did in 2008 and 2009.

wbonesteel, That's a terrific harvest you got from your 4 hills. I have had great luck storing sweet potatoes in plastic bins in the spare bedroom. I slide the bins right under the bed. The bins are sort of a waffle-weave, which means there's plenty of holes for good air flow. I've had sweet potatoes last a year or more stored that way some years, though in other years they start sprouting in March or April, which is okay because those sprouts can be severed from the taters and used to grow the next year's crops.

Dawn

I dug up the four small hills the other day. Had about half a wheel barrow full from all four hills. This year, for some reason, the sweet taters cook up great. Best tasting sweet potatoes I've ever eaten, anywhere. One more hill to dig up. It was a volunteer from a batch of partially composted compost from last year.

The rest of the garden has been all but cleaned up, now. Looks completely different than it did a couple of weeks ago. Well, the turnip bed is a mess, but otherwise, it all looks pretty good, still. Fall lettuce and spinach have been added to our meals. The snow peas are in flower. We'll se if they produce anything. Garlic for next year is looking healthy. Cabbages and broccoli are growing, but that's about all I'll say about 'em. I haven't been watering them on a regular basis.

I also removed the alyssum in the front flowerbed, saved the seeds and planted them around most of the property lines. If the seeds and seedlings can handle this winter, next year they will give us quite a show.