Sweet Potatoes

Here's a link to an article I found extolling the virtues of the humble sweet potato.  Sweet potatoes are easy to grow, and a great calorie crop.  I've even seen them growing happily in those 5 gallon buckets that you find in the home improvement stores!

Growing
So far as growing them is concerned, now is probably too late in the season to try.  They need about 100 no-frost days to grow, but as soon as the danger of frost is over, you can sow them directly into your beds.  What's more, you can grow them again in late summer for a fall harvest.  If you're starting with a full size sweet potato that you've allowed to vine out (and good luck with that by the way if your potatoes have been treated with a bud preventer), don't just plunk the whole thing into the ground.  Nip off each vine with a chunk of the potato still attached, and plant each separately.  You'll get a bigger harvest that way.  You can use cuttings of the vine as well, but I admit, I have not tested this method yet.  The vines tend to be amazingly prolific, and will creep over your whole garden bed if you let them, so keep an eye on them.  Redirect as necessary.  I wouldn't get too carried away with fertilizer, and never use a nitrogen based commerical fertilizer.  Tubers in general often do better when you don't feed them too much.  Otherwise, you get lots of pretty leaf growth, and very little tuber.  They are not picky about soil, but, as usual with annuals, well-draining is preferred.  If you've got nothing but gumbo, then you'd better break it up or mix in some compost.  Root choker, that stuff is.  Finally, since the actual sweet potato tubers will grow out underneath the base plant, make sure your garden bed is nice and deep to allow lots of grow room.

Harvest & Storage
After about 4 months or so, you can harvest them!  Pull up the plant gently, and you'll see up to a handful of yummy sweet potatoes growing under the base.  Only they're not so yummy just yet.  Sweet potatoes don't quite live up to the "sweet" in their name fresh out of the ground, though they won't taste gross either.  If you want the sweetness and texture that you get out of the store bought versions, then you have to cure them.  You do this by keeping them in a warm, humid place for about a week.  If you've got warm, but not humid (Texoma, anyone?), then rig something up with row cover fabric, or anything else that will hold humidity.  The ideal temperature for this will be about 80-85 degrees.  After that, you can store them in a dark, cool spot (not your fridge, that's too cool), and they'll usually keep for at least two weeks minimum.  The ideal storage temperature is about 55 degrees.  The extent to which your sweet potatoes stay fresh is directly related to how closely you reach that temperature.  Here's a link I found with additional information on curing and storing sweet potatoes.

After that, you can enjoy your super healthy sweet potatoes.  Happy gardening!