Summer Gardens 2015 Part 4

Sweet potatoes just keep getting bigger and bigger. "As long as possible" can make for some HUGE tubers. The biggest ones will be right under the plant's original vine. Mine (Beauregard) didn't lose any quality when huge -- I had some in the 6-7 pound range.

The big ones are good for casseroles and stuff but not so much for baked potatoes.

The leaves are edible, too, but obviously you want the young tender ones. Very popular in southeast Asia.

Watch out for chipmunks!

you know i wonder if we even have chipmunks around here, i have never seen one in person at all....ever, lol. But now squirrels are plentiful, so pretty much the same threat.

For me, HUGE would be good, lol. :) In my original photo of the developing tubers, the couple that were at the surface were actually only as big around as my thumb from what i could see, so they definitely have a ways to go, but that doesnt mean that i dont already have some whoppers down below those.

OMG! Those things are huge! Lol

speaking of sweet potatoes, i made a trade with a fellow DG member back on the 27th, traded some clippings of my purple sweet potatoes, for some of his peppermint, which just arrived today. it might look like its in rough shape now, but the roots definitely looked great, so it will make a heck of a good bounce back. And this thing will never leave the confines of a clay pot, dont need it replacing our lawn, lol.

Last year the chipmunks tunneled under the ground below my sunken fence line, up into the sweet potato patch and ate out the inside of the taters leaving a hollow shell and a snug room for a chipmunk. I lost at least half my harvest that way.

Squirrels may be elite raiders, but I've decided chipmunks are the Navy Seals of the pest world.

I've got chipmunks everywhere; so do my neighbors. Parts of my yard look like a Light Bright board. So I didn't grow any sweets this year. I also stopped dumping food in the compost pile aka smorgasbord, took down the bird feeders (candy machines) and very carefully poisoned the active tunnels out by the garden with something that won't hurt anything that eats them. The bait doesn't work that well and you can only use it once a year, but it did seem to put a dent in the population.

This winter I need to devise a truly critter-proof compost bin. I'm not sure how I will manage that!

[quote="Gymgirl"]When did y'all plant your sweeties?

This is my first time in the raised bed, and, I'm not exactly sure when they should be ready.


I checked the planting date and mine were planted May 3rd.

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