Harvest A 16-pound Sweet Potato and More
Sweet potato is one of our starchy energy foods from the homestead. I am showing you how many sweet potatoes a sweet potato slip can grow in less than one year. I harvested only one-quarter of the area this sweet potato has taken over. I had to stop. There were simply too many!
Usually, under an optimal growing condition, sweet potatoes can be harvested in 3 months. I planted this one in the wood chips for about one year before I harvested. Let's see what has happened.
Those 5 in the front have the normal shape. They were about 3 months old. If you don't harvest them, they'll continue to grow to weird shapes just like those in the back.
This is where they grew. I had just pulled them out.
The largest one in normal shape is 1 lb 12 3/8 oz (or 805 g).
The largest one of all weighs 16 pounds (or 7.3 kg). I didn't know how to cook a 16 lbs sweet potato. It looks just like a turkey, which gives me an idea ...
I roasted it just like roasting a turkey - 20 minutes per pound at 325 F / 163 C.
It turned out to be very good. We simply sliced a piece of it whenever someone wanted to eat it. It lasted for a whole week.
Thank you for stopping by today for my sweet potato adventure. I'll see you next time.
Wow! Those are amazing sizes for sweet potatoes. I would say you have a real green thumb!
Thank you. My brown thumb has slowly turned green. ;-)
Glad to see your journey and hilarious that it lasted an entire week! I'm going to try and grow 100lb of sweet potatoes this year :)
~ Kevin
Good luck on your growing 100 lb of sweet potatoes! I roasted mine like a turkey. You'll need to roast them like pigs. ;-)
I'll store most of them :)
Fantastic. Can you write a post on how to grow them? We want to grow them here, but we live in a zone 2b. I thought sweet potatoes required a much longer growing season, but it sounds like we should be able to grow them here. Any tips or hints would be great. I look forward to the post my friend. Well done.
Certainly, I am glad to share how I grow sweet potatoes! Here is the post. Wish you success in experimenting growing sweet potatoes in your climate. Thank you for stopping by.
Delicious, the best sweets, healthy even for diabetics. Good harvest @cheneats.
That's awesome! I bet pit cooking all those sweet potatoes would be fantastic! If you have Netflix I would highly recommend watching Chefs Table Season 1 Episode 3: Francis Mallmann. He cooks what looks like the most delicious pumpkin on earth in a pit. If you grow more of those giant Sweet Potatoes it would be a great way to host a gathering and drop 10 of those suckers in a pit with all sorts of herbs and spices.
Thank you for the video reference and the idea to cook these giant Sweet Potatoes!
so good! we grew sweets (as we affectionately call them) for the second time this year and had a great harvest (we left for two months during the first one and deer got to em!). they're so easy to grow and so so delicious and nutritious! nice harvest and that huge one is hilarious! glad it was good eating!
Thank you! No wonderful they are called sweet potatoes! I was so surprised to find the huge one didn't have fibers in it to spit out. :-)
yeah me too! i would assume the bigger the woodier, but it's good to know not in your case!! huge mamajama!! lol
Wow........ That is simply incredible. A mammoth of a potato...
Still in awe.. these pics are as wild as your other post.. Thing looks unearthly.
Exactly ... it looks like a sweet potato from Mars for aliens ;-)
Lol, is that a plate under that monster? It doesn’t look effective.
Man, that’s a lot of potatoes! Is there a secret to growing them in such abundance? Or did you put the plant in woodchips and walk away?
Yes, that was a big dinner plate under the monster. ;-) Yes, I walked away. It's amazing that sweet potato vines grow faster than any weeds.
Never mind, I see the next post. :)
oh my gosh that is too awesome
Wow. It is so big. Never find sweet potato as big as that. Amazing!
Thank you! I had never seen one that big before, either. ;-)