Looking over the semen catalogues in the wintertime months is always a favourite pastime . I love getting to know all the new vegetable cultivars and unexpected heirlooms now on the market place and happily envisage them all growing in my very own garden . In one of these gleeful bit of garden lecherousness I decide to tell some heirloom sweet potatoes for the front curtilage .
I placed my social club last January and had to hold off five long month until the starts in conclusion come at my doorstep . The barren - root sweet spud slips are n’t shipped until planting time , based on your geographical zone ’s Robert Frost - free date .
I ordain the All Purple sweet potato , a traditional Japanese heirloom with imperial pelt that reveals luscious empurpled soma when discase or thin open . This cultivar ’s vines are low-cal purple with contrasting luminous unripe foliage . While a little less sweet-flavored and starchier than common orange - fleshed sweet potatoes , they ’re ideal for any number of culinary software program , from crispy purple seraphic potato fries to homemade sweet potato alimentary paste .
It seemed like such a long excruciating wait until May when the outset were rescue that I hungrily tore launch the box , only to happen a minuscule bunch of slips with brittle leaf , gravely wilt from the strenuous mailing process . I immediately put them in the ground , though with modest expectations base on their pathetic shape .
Fortunately , fresh Solanum tuberosum boom in the South Carolina rut , and my slips not only survived the shipping impairment , they quickly began to vine and take over their box of the garden . Just this week it was in the end time to harvest my sweet potato harvest . I took a rounded shovel and mildly toil up the plants .
Growing and Harvesting Tips
If you ’re missing sweet potatoes in your garden , consider lay in an Holy Order next year . Plant the slips in rows about 1½ to 2 feet apart with at least 3 feet between each wrangle . The All Purple gratifying Irish potato takes anywhere between 90 and 120 days to to the full get on , but consult the seed catalogue for the grow time of the miscellany you choose .
When digging sweet white potato vine , plant your spadeful further away from the works and work your room toward the center of attention , slowly twist the earth . With every shovelful of soil , keep your middle flake off for any tuber so as not to slice or bruise them . glean the tuber before the first frost , and blame a ironical day , as extra wet may damage the tubers .
Cure the sweet potatoes in a lovesome , humid space for several day , follow by an lengthened menstruation of storage in cooler condition around 55 to 60 degrees F for several weeks . The curing process will ensure that your fresh murphy are dampish and sweet .
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