Sweet Potato Harvest

This is the second part of the sweet potato harvest.  Before we can get in and actually dig and pick up the potatoes (which is what you'll see here), the vines need to be cut and the plastic mulch removed.  It's a big job!  We'll see if Kelly (our bookkeeper & in house videographer) can send us that footage as well.

In a nutshell:  The tractor pulls the harvester which loosens the potatoes from the ground, with a little human help.  They go up the belt, which helps shake off some of the dirt.  At the top of the belt, the guys are sorting the potatoes from the biggest clumps of dirt and putting them into wooden crates.  When the crates are full, they go onto a pallet on a wagon.  Once we get a full wagon, we drive back to the farm and unload the pallets into the nursery greenhouse (see the previous post).  They need to "cure" for a couple days to make them sweet.  Then they'll be washed, trimmed and sorted by size and quality.  Then into your CSA box, then dinner or pie!