Harvest - Sweet Potatoes!

So sorry Darius - that's got to hurt. It hurts me looking at the photos!

HB - Chloe is so cute! We watched a young red tail hawk earlier this summer that was very brave (or very dumb depending on how you look at it) that was interested in taking a neighbor's chihuahuas. The neighbor was throwing stones at the hawk to scare it and until she actually hit it with a stone, the hawk stood its ground about 8 feet off the ground in a tree... He hung out on the ground under my bird feeder for a morning too. Amazing.

Cindy

Cindy_GA - We almost lost our Chloe to a young red tailed hawk when she was a puppy. If she hadn't been lying really close to the fence, she would have been a gonner! Fortunately, the hawk pulled up at the last minute. After that incident, we put a dog-coat on Chloe to make her look bigger.

HoneybeeNC, cute doggie! Coyotes don't like lights at night. So leave one on.

We had a really bad problem with field rats when we first built this house. They would come right up on the back porch in broad daylight! Yuck! I do not like rats around the house. Our pasture was owned by an out of state person and he let anyone hunt on the property. I finally caught up with everyone and told them we bought the acreage and would they please stop hunting and shooting there. Well, shortly after that one lone coyote showed up. I made all kinds of noise and DH put up good fencing to keep him out of the yard. No more field rats. Mr Coyote is big and fat now and has a nice shiny coat. He gets that we don't want him anywhere near the house and in return he can have all the field rats he can catch. We also have a sheppard and a Catahoula curr who consider themselves the eternal guardians of my two Corgis. So far Mr Coyote has not even looked twice at my dogs. The few times I have seen him when we are out in the yard he just slinks away. The Catahoula in particular can really give you the "IRS stare" when she thinks you've invaded the territory.

Although not in our immediate neighborhood, a family in the area had a Coyote jump their fence and attack their dog.

When I took Chloe out last night, there was a raccoon eating fallen bird seed on our porch.

Put up a sign that reads: Wildlife Sanctuary - and guess what shows up! LOL

(We don't have an actual sign, but somehow wildlife know they're safe here)

On varmints, this thread is cool if you hadn't seen it ~ http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1222966/
Who knows what lurks out there in the dark!

Thanks for the link, podster. My daughter asked me what would get rid of Coyotes; I told her Wolves!

There are no Bob Cats around here as far as I know, although it has been rumored that Cougars are in the neighborood. I'll believe that when I see one!

Okay, just harvested my SPs. We ordered two carefully selected varieties but didn't realize we had to plant them as soon as they arrived, so they rotted and we had to go buy more slips from our local farm market. These were Maple Leaf sweets. We had one 45-foot row and another 25-foot row and we have about five grape crates full. I don't know where to put them to cure, since it's chilly here now; I've got them in the greenhouse to dry and then we'll brush the dirt off, sort them, and put them down the basement. We had vole damage too, but those can go for deer bait. And I may end up having to cook and freeze some because a friend said that they don't store as well if they're left in the ground after it gets cold, and we have had some hard freezes already. But we are very pleased with our harvest; it's a lot better than the white potatoes, for sure! I'm going to cook some tonight just to see what they're like, and hope that the flavor deepens and sweetens with storage as you all have said.

Our sweets are definitely getting sweeter, and deeper in color, too.

Where did you cure yours, or did you harvest yours earlier when the temperatures were higher?

The ones we cooked for dinner were already really sweet; my granddaughter thought I had put sugar on them, but I just baked them whole and we put a little butter on them at the table. I was very pleasantly surprised! If they get much sweeter they're going to be like candy!

This message was edited Nov 21, 2011 4:47 PM

Here's my harvest; not showing is a seventh box piled high with cull for deerbait. We're really pleased. But do you wash them or just brush the dirt off once they dry a bit?

egads! Do Not Wash, just lightly brush off dirt that's loose...

Yeah, that's what DH said, too, but I wasn't sure because they're pretty dirty...Bringing them into the basement like this is going to cause quite a mess!

Leslie, after they dry in the shade a few days, most of the dirt should brush off easily.

Hmmm, shade, not greenhouse then. I left them in there because it was warmer and sheltered. Oh, dear! Now to find enough shade outside for six boxes....

I'd go with the greenhouse, g-gal. Lots of folks around here field cure their S-potatoes, i.e., digging then leaving them in the sun IF the weather is still warm days and nights. I'm sure your g-house will be warm enough to heat them up, turning the starch into sugar. Once they've been cures/sweetened then you would want to keep them at a cooler temp, preferably around 50 or so for winter storage.
Congrats on a bumper harvest! I'm impressed!

Cindy, you go girl! Ya'lls harvest from 16 sq feet is fantastic! Ya done good! Way to go!

Shoe (sweet potato freak) :>)

Leslie, I agree with Shoe... a GH will work fine for drying them enough to wipe off most of the dirt.

Okay, thanks! One less chore for tomorrow! We're expecting rain again tomorrow, though, so the greenhouse won't get up past ambient temperature, which might not be enough to sweeten them, but they're already pretty sweet as it is.

We were really pleased with our crop! I guess the thing to do is to eat up the damaged ones first - there were some that had been gnawed but there was still most of the potato left, and those I didn't put in the deer pile. I figured I'd trim them before I cooked them.

GG -

Thanks, HB. I just wanted to make less of a mess when I brought them into the basement. I guess once I can brush them off a little they'll be as well off down there, where it's usually in the low to mid sixties, as they'd be in the greenhouse.

Does anyone have solid evidence beyond heresay as why potatoes shoiud not be hosed off when dug?

I did break the rules above and washed the dirt off mine. I rinsed them in a bucket and then gently brushed off the remaining dirt, rinsing again. I couldn't see what difference it would make as it has done nothing but rain here all fall - they couldn't get any wetter! But I guess the brushing is the problem so I was careful. I also couldn't find a day to dig them up when the ground wasn't wet so they had more dirt than if the ground had been dry. They seem to have done fine. I put them in my heated kitchen lav for 10 days and now they are in the cooler cellar. We have already eaten a lot of them. My husband loves them cut up and fried after I cook them in boiling salt water for maybe 15 minutes to get somewhat soft. We have been away for two weeks so I am curious if the cellar ones will be any sweeter than before we left. This is be a great Thanksgiving treat!

Gardadore, glad to hear about your experiment. I actually thought there'd be less chance of their getting moldy if they were clean and didn't have dirt clinging to them. But we have a lot so I will probably just brush them off with a very soft brush before bringing them in. Unfortunately we don't have any place to cure them that's warmer than about 65 at this time of year - even the greenhouse isn't warming up because we've had no sun for days - so I'll have to go with what we've got.

gardadore -

I'll bet that's tasty; they must carmelize a little that way!

gg -

Actually that's how I cook my green beans when they're a bit on the large side. I use a little pork fat or onions or peppers or anything else I have handy, and cook them low and slow, letting them burn just a little. They're really good that way!

We had baked sweet potatoes again last night with leftover ribs; we are just so pleased with them!

Well there's always a glitch in any new thing one tries! After getting past the drying and curing part I thought the storage would be easy. Unfortunately while I was away mice got into my baskets and did quite a job on the SP. I had stored them in my lettuce spinners because they have holes for aeration and put them in mesh bags for a 5 gallon bucket down in the cool cellar. But mice chewed through the mesh. Fortunately I was able to cut away the chewed parts and salvage a lot of the unchewed parts but I still had to throw away a lot as well. So now I must solve the storage problem. Obviously some kind of wire mesh is necessary.
I did cook up a bunch for my annual Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole and it was delicious!! Any suggestions you all might have on storage would be appreciated!

I haven't had mice in storage, but had a vole in some hills in the patch. My suggestion sounds very simplistic, but would likely work fairly well. Every fall have a couple mouse traps with peanut butter in them.

I do have mouse traps in the kitchen all the time but didn't think about the cellar! Duh, that should help. I will have to surround the stored potatoes with them and hope I don't have an army lurking that can break through the trap line! I think I will also search the shed for some wire mesh!

Gardadore ~ can you possibly bag them in mesh and hang the bags from the rafters?

Probably- Great idea! Thanks!

gardadore, when I started making cheese and aging it in my root cellar, I built a simple wood-framed box covered with 1/8" hardware cloth to keep filed mice out. (1/4" hardware cloth doesn't always work for the tiny field mice.) They munched a few of the apples, but that's all.

gardadore - how about a cat? Even some dogs are good "mousers".

Thanks for all the ideas!! For future storage I like the idea of covering a wooden box with the 1/8" hardware cloth. For the few sweet potatoes I have left I think I can use my present container with a piece of hardware cloth on the top or make something out of the hardware cloth I have. By the time I get anything constructed we should have eaten them up! I will be taking the rest with me to Arizona in 10 days when I visit my son and family. Pets are out - we are away too much. We have some stray cats around but the mice seem to escape them and find refuge in our house!