This harvest is definitely not what I expected! How did your sweet potato harvest turn out this year? Comment below! We would love to hear about it!
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22 Comments
I am in northeast Texas . I harvested my sweet potatoes on October 19th. I use a fertilizer that is pretty equivalent to an 8-16-8. I used too much nitrogen one year and got NO potatoes, just lots of foliage that the bugs loved. This year I harvested 120 pounds of sweet potatoes in a 15ft row.
I’m in zone 4/5. I’m waiting til we have a frost. Not looking like this week. Does anyone eat the leaves? Do you eat leaves w bug holes?
So interesting you just published this. Our sweet potatoes (first time growers) languished from May until until early September when they took off! But given that we might leave many of them in under a thick mulch bed overwinter (zone 6a – St. Louis, MO).
Sweet potato roots try to grow downwards. I grew mine on a hugelkultur bed this year and they grew up past the soil surface. This may have lowered my overall yield, but definitely made harvesting easier. I mainly grew sweet potato for the greens though. Spinach doesn't do well where I live and it was easier to get my hands on than Malabar spinach.
This actually makes me feel better because my sweet potatoe harvest was sad to. Maybe it just wasn’t the year 🤷♀️
I tried one plant for the first time this year and got a huge harvest! I grew it in a pot on my deck (away from the bunnies). I saw another YouTuber do video in which he planted in grow bags and his raised bed. The bags produced a much bigger harvest. He stated that this is because sweet potatoes do not like to be grown in very fertile soil with a lot of organic matter. This is probably true because I had no organic matter in my pot and actually had very low expectations…
Only tip I have is the sweet potato doesn't like really rich soil. More nitrogen is lovely vines but small tubers.
I’ll be constructing some kind of tunnel. Got great root veggies until the bunnies found my plot. Now everything is stunted.
I did the same thing here, in Northern Michigan. I bought organic sweet potatoes from Meijer and they did amazing! Meijer probably has the same contractor for most of the state. Maybe try them next year.
Too wet
I'm in the Central San Joaquin Valley in CA. There are commercial sweet potato (or yam?) growers in our area, so they like it here. I grow slips from grocery store organic sweet potatoes and plant them in big grow bags. Ironically, because I didn't think they would grow well in my clay soil. I think heat is a huge factor. Our summers are long and unbearably hot. 5 months over 90, with 3-4 months consistently well over 100. And we were in a drought. So they don't get very wet, but they get a lot of heat. And when I turn out the bags to harvest, I'm amazed that there are so many large tubers in such a small amount of soil. I am grateful for you sharing this video, because now I know that, if push comes to shove, I'll try growing sweets in my clay soil. I would never have considered it!
oh sweet lord this explains where my sweet potatoes went. I buried them like 1 and a half feet down……..
Saute or dehydrate those leaves. Tastes great either way.. like sweet potatoes. I powder the dehydrated leaves for my green shakes. Awesome. Also, u could use a pitch fork.
Hang in there, Luke!! Live and learn. To avoid cutting, shovel straight down from edge of bed….you jabbed in 8 inches or so from the edge…..start wide and work inward. Silver lining – leaves are edible AND a fair amount of biomass for composting. Keep 'em coming!!! Grow BIG!!!!
Hi Luke. I live across the border in Canada, an hour away. From my experience with sweet potatoes, too much nitrogen makes them produce greens but not the roots which is what the sweet potato is. Also if you let the vines vine out and root, it tries to make more sweet potatoes but they will all be small. Bette4 to grow vertically so they can’t root anywhere else. I have also found growing in pots out performs my raised beds.
Mine produced less this year too. what we got made one crockpot stew so it wasn't a waste but definitely smaller harvest this year compared to past years.
I had same issue this year in my garden. Lots of vining but tubers were same and only got about 2 lbs. usually I get about 20 lbs. i thought it might becaused by the crazy weather we had again.
Takeaway 1a , the tubers were helping to break up and break down that clay layer which is a very useful thing to know for the next time you grow them. Saves the gardener from some of the extra work shoveling or forking to break that clay layer down.
I disagree on fertilizing, except 5-5-5 start of planting with potash and bonemeal.. Nitrogen during growing season will enhance leaf and vines, you want root growth.
My harvest was okay, I just did it today. Better than last year but still nothing to write home about.
I've always grown them in containers, and watching you struggle to find all of those reminds me of why I choose the containers lol.
I always plant my slips in my old wheel barrow so the roots stay in about a foot of soil. Last season, I harvested about 10 pounds of mostly large and some your size sweet potatoes. They were absolutely delicious and sweet. I did not know the aging process, so I just put them in a large bowl on a low storage shelf in my kitchen. There are still a few left in great shape. I never thought they would last this long and be so good. The bunnies could have had an impact, but I have noticed the plants don't like fertilizer to grow the sweet potatoes and deeper soil makes them grow deeper. One of the other gardeners used large grow bags and a raised bed and got much better results from the growbags. Glad you made this video, although somewhat unsuccessful. We have to learn to garden and garden to learn. Something always grows better than something else. May the Lord keep blessing you and yours. Keep on growing better and better.
I’ve only grown sweet potatoes once, but they did o.k. I plan to grow them again this next year.