By Farmer Richard
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| Sweet Potato Harvest, 2017 |
Every year is different.
How was this year’s crop? Well,
considering we had a cold, wet spring followed by a wet late summer which
continued into fall, what would you expect for a tropical, hot and dry loving
plant? Maybe a crop failure? Surprise!
From the 16,000 slips, planted on 1.5 acres of sandy river bottom ground
we brought in a surprising 33,300 pounds of very nice sweet potatoes! Less than the average yield from North
Carolina or California, the leading sweet potato producers in the US, but our
unique production system of planting into raised beds covered with green
plastic really surprised us! Even though
it was far too wet when we harvested them the excess water had drained off
between the beds, so under the raised plastic beds, the soil was only moist and
the sweet potatoes had happily produced a nice “banana bunch” like
cluster. We only used our buried
irrigation lines to deliver a bit of fertilizer and a new organic product to
deter the worms that had previously produced deep holes in the developing sweet
potatoes. Well, something worked! You’ll notice there are almost no holes this year! Thanks to Kyle’s feedback (Madison CSA
member) about the holes on some of our sweet potatoes last year, we tried to
address the problem and appear to have succeeded! We listen, we try.
Last year we did a more extensive trial of new varieties and
asked for feedback on your favorites. Based
on last year’s trials and your feedback, we chose two varieties, “Burgundy” and
“Covington,” both available from our certified organic friends at New Sprout
Farms. We also added a small amount of
the Japanese white fleshed variety “Murasaki” on Andrea’s insistence. They produced only ⅓ of the volume of the
best two, but they are so “unbelievably sweet” even before they were
cured. Despite the meager yield, this is
by far the best yield we’ve ever seen on this potato and they actually produced
sizeable potatoes this year! We hope to pack
a few in your boxes this fall.
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| Sweet potatoes "curing." |
After last year’s variety trials, which you can read about
on our blog, we find that our refractometer reading for “Brix” does not always reflect the
eating experience. The fact that
different varieties have different levels of the 3 sugars, sucrose, fructose,
and maltose actually plays into the eating experience. The Brix measurement we get only reflects
overall sugars, but does not give us an indicator of the overall sensation of
sweetness. So while we do still measure
brix levels, we’re really left with just cooking them and eating them to see how
they taste! We did “cure” them for a
full 10 days at 85°F and 90% humidity.
We burned up a bunch of wood and some propane in the process, but we
think it was worth the wait!
Look forward to an abundance of sweet potatoes in all
remaining boxes and feel free to order extras for winter. We’ll offer them as a produce plus item
before Thanksgiving and again in December.
We plan to eat them until spring.
Of course, we always appreciate your feedback, so let us know what you
think!
One little side note in closing, our sweet Captain Jack, “The
Dog,” has developed a very strong liking for dried sweet potato slices when we
tried to find healthy chew treats for him.
So with Jack as tester, I have developed the precise method of slicing,
baking, and drying for a shelf stable, healthy organic treat for special dog
friends. Of course, made from the “not
so pretty” sweet potatoes, but just a tasty.
If you have a four-legged friend that might be interested in trying
these, watch for this offering from me & Captain Jack later in
the season.
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