The humble sweet potato. A 100 calorie root that tastes more like candy than a potato. Not to be confused with the Yam, a similar looking, but drier vegetable grown mainly in Africa and Asia, the sweet potato gives you a lot of bang for those 100 calories. They're high in vitamin A, vitamin B5, B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, and, carotenoids which means they can help fight cancer. But don't go eating bowls and bowls of sweet potatoes on the off chance you think they'll cure your cancer. They won't. Plus eating too many of them will turn your skin and nails orange because of all the Vitamin A, so then you won't only have cancer, you'll have cancer and look like you're wearing a prison jumpsuit.
For the past 6 years I've been growing sweet potatoes in a place you really shouldn't be able to grow sweet potatoes; cold, cold, Canada. And yet. Every single year I've successfully grown sweet potatoes. I've also successfully grown what appears to be cellulite on my foot which you shouldn't be able to do either.
But there you have it. A success on both counts.
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My 4' x 4' sweet potato patch was all the space I needed for planting 9 sweet potato slips.
I don't need much more sweet potatoes than this patch will produce, plus I didn't want to waste too much space in my garden on sweet potatoes since last year my harvest was mostly enjoyed by mice and voles. Who neither made reservations nor left me a tip.
This year I tried some vole protection. I covered my entire sweet potato bed with hardware cloth screwed into the raised beds so tight that not a single vole could squish through it at any point. Or so I hoped.
On October 3rd I trudged up to the garden while the paint in my dining room was drying and took the hardware cloth off and got my very first look at whether or not this experiment worked.
That plastic is thermal plastic (in case you missed it in the video) which helps keep the temperature of the soil raised by 10 degrees. That's the trick to growing big sweet potatoes in Canada.
If you aren't sure what to do with sweet potatoes, my favourite way to eat them is either baked, just like a regular potato or made into sweet potato fries using my Guaranteed Crispy Sweet Potato Fry technique.
By the way, shitload is a technical term you understand.
Lois Baron
As usual, you totally conquer something that I wouldn't even attempt. If you didn't live is such a cold place, I would totally want to be you! And thank you for answering the question about voles--it was big question as soon as I read the headline. lol.
Milton
Great video, impressive harvest!
Kim Kelley
My hero!
Pam
Wow, nice job. I dug mine up last week and mine did OK but yours are more evenly sized than mine. I got one giant sweet tater and several small ones from each slip. I did have one that was nibbled on so I will try the hardware cloth next year. I think preparing a nice fluffy hill for them before planting is important.
Mary W
Congrats on the good harvest - makes me hungry for lemon zested sweet potato pie, SP chips, SP hash browns, and the wonderful smells that come from cooking them. Your garden in amazing and could only come from an amazing gardener like you. I just don't understand what is taking Idris so long.
JackieVB
My favorite way to eat sweet potatoes is steamed then mashed with a little bit of Chipotle chili pepper, some chopped applewood smoked bacon and a little bit of butter on top. You could also add some swiss or white cheddar cheese if you wanted.
You'll never go back to brown sugar and butter again. Ok, maybe you will but I promise this is very good and worth trying.
Teresa Rosato
Do you cure them after you pull them? I've heard this needs to be done in order for them to be tasty.. if not how do you store them afterwards? TIA!
Ann
I stopped curing mine. We eat the first ones within hours of harvesting and they seem every bit as sweet as if I had purposefully cured them. I just never let the tubers get colder than about 50 degrees F after I have brought them into the house
Karen
Really?! You're lucky! I've tried them out of the ground just to see what they were like and they tasted very much like cardboard, lol. I think your experience is probably an exception as opposed to the norm. The variety maybe? I'd still advise people to cure them because keeping them at that humidity will allow you to store them for quite a bit longer. ~ karen!
Karen
I absolutely cure them Teresa. :) I thought I mentioned that in the post, but must not have! To cure them I put them in a box (either cardboard with the lid closed and a damp towel in with them, or plastic bin with the lid partially off) to keep them at 85% humidity and 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 days. Then another couple of weeks at regular room temperature, then into cold storage that doesn't go below 50. The sweet potatoes really aren't sweetened for a couple of months and if you eat them before that they'll just taste bland. ~ karen!
Nicole
Okay, this may just be a question with a self-evident answer that I missed but . . . how do you keep them at 80-85 degrees in October? My house certainly isn't that warm - with my hot flashes my family would be in great peril if it was even close to 80 degrees!
Karen
Hi Nicole ... it's in there somewhere but I'm not sure where, lol. I put the sweet potatoes in a rubbermaid bin with the lid not closed tight. Then I put that bin in front of (or on top of) a heat register. Normally by the time I pull my sweet potatoes I have my furnace on and it all works out perfectly. :) ~ karen!
Nicole
Thanks! I'll put mine near the woodstove and hope for the best next year. :)
sideroad40
***Shitload**** !!! Wow Karen, your patience, experimenting nature and cleverness paid off big time. ~~ very impressed ~~ A sweet potato a day keeps the doctor away. :)
Paula
They look perfect! I got frost before the end of September this year, so I am not sure that I would have the time to grow sweet potatoes but I will give them a go next year.
Rebecca Mahoney
I have a dumb question. How does covering your bed prevent burrowing voles? Mine (no pun intended) mine underground like moles. My saffron is at constant risk growing in a cage.
Karen
Hi Rebecca. The voles LOVE to tunnel. But they want to tunnel from where they see the food. The raised beds are high enough that they'd have to tunnel under the wood of the raised bed and up to the sweet potatoes. They're smart but not that smart. Yet, lol. ~ karen!
Grammy
Beautiful harvest! I love when your experiments work so well. I did exactly the same thing to protect all my raised beds from the neighbor's cat, and it worked exceedingly well for that, too.
I love to just bake sweet potatoes and eat them like an ordinary baked potato, they taste so good by themselves that they don't need any butter or any other thing -- just savor the delicious veggie on its own.
TucsonPatty
I am just loving looking at all of the impressive, gorgeous taters you got there - my kind of meal. I get on an eating kick, and before you know it, my palms and fingers are that lovely shade of orange that is so hard to replicate. How long will this batch last?
Lisa
My possums LOVE sweet potatoes, I share mine with them (or they with me)...not really sure. I can send some possums over if you have too many sweet potatoes. Have you tried them mashed - very scrummy. Loving your posts as always. :-)
MaggieB
Ergh! I'm not so sure about mashed Possums - think I'll give them a miss :)
Teri
LOL, not sure the name of the grammar rule that got mashed there (pun intended) but it made me chuckle. Personally I find possums useful for the fur they donate to my favourite winter socks. Any Kiwis here that want to weigh in on those great socks?
Karen your sweet potatoes look pretty darn good. Out here on the wet coast I know folks who grow them (we're zone 8b in parts of B.C.) but yours, with the thermal plastic and hardware cloth look much better.
I peel, bake, dice and then throw them into a salad with raw spinach and dried (or fresh) blueberries. Superfoods overdrive. With balsamic and maple syrup dressing. As Canadian as poutine.
Lisa
Yes the Kiwis hate our possums and we are the same way about the British Foxes - cute but don't belong with our wildlife - toads (mind you not their fault just the idiots of history). Love the idea of balsamic and maple syrup dressing shall have to try that.
Nan
Jane~ you mentioned that you keep the sweet potatoes in the fridge. That could be why they're getting moldy. Karen, just plain love your blog even if nothing pertains to anything I'm doing (or want to do)! I'm in northern Wisconsin so our weather isn't that different, you might have encouraged me to do more gardening,
Ardith
A real triumph! Congratulations, Ardith
Lynn
I love them also . I have just been to chicken to try an grown them here . Out side of Edmonton our weather can get crazy during every season.
Karen
Ooooo, yes, that'd be a stretch to grow them just outside of Edmonton, but ... you could give it a shot. Mine grow from June 1st (when the soil is warm enough to plant them) and I leave them in the ground until the threat of frost. ~ karen!
Mary Schnitzler
Try baking them, and just cut them in half and add some butter and brown sugar, or pineapple tidbits. Yum!
Jan in Waterdown
I really must get my act together and start eating sweet potatoes. I buy them, they get moldy in the fridge and then I throw them out. Think I maaaay be missing an important step. By the way, you looked kinda hot in that video. I mean that in a friendly hopefully not weird way. Yup.
Karen
I did?? I'm doubting that, but I'll go have another look at it just in case, lol. ~ karen!
Jenny in California
Never put them in the fridge! (Or any kind of potato, for that matter.) That's why yours get moldy and gross tasting. Keep them in a cool dark place like a cabinet, or the basement if you have one. Karen, your sweet potatoes are beautiful!
Mary
Will be trying your SPF recipe. Many others promise crispy SPFs, but so far not so great. Fingers crossed your recipe works.
Karen
If you follow the directions it'll work Mary. The 100% sure way it to deep fry them. But it only works if you put the coating on that I suggest. You'll still get crispy fries in the oven they just won't be quite as good. Because frying makes everything better, lol. ~ karen!
Gayle''
Thanks for the tip. I love sweet potatoes and will give this a try. Love reading your blog!
Karen
Thanks Gayle! ~ karen