Sweet Story

A few cold days and nights and a weather forecast originally portending daily rainfall this week triggered the sweet potato harvest switch. The forecast has changed and it's now hot again but we all worked hard and harvested about 90% of the sweet potato crop over the past few days. The haul this year is once again substantial and after a couple weeks of curing and sweetening in the barn, the sweets will be distributed for your culinary enjoyment. During the curing process starches are converted to sugars, wounds heal, skins thicken and toughen, and shelf life is extended. We pile them up and use a space heater in an insulated room to provide them with the necessary curing conditions. Based on how my body feels, I believe this was the most weight I've moved and stowed in the barn in a three day span in my career. I think I handled every single basket and bin of sweets that went into storage, either going into the truck, going from the truck to the storage room, or both. I'm going to estimate we put away about 6000 pounds which explains why I'm so tired, my arms and upper body have a slight ache, and I'm afraid I'll have sweet potato nightmares. Thank you food community for your help harvesting this wonderful crop!

How did we get here? Fields overwintered in a cover crop, were chisel plowed in early May, raised beds were made in late May, sweet potato slips (aka baby vines) were planted in early June, the crop was weeded a few weeks later, beds were hilled/cultivated like regular potatoes, vines quickly took over and established themselves mostly smothering and outcompeting weeds, and almost 4 months later we weed whacked aisles and undercut/lifted raised beds to loosen the soil and expedite harvest. Then the hard work really began. Again, thank you for helping!