Chet, you got that right! We have been trying to figure that out as well. These came out of the high humidity bin yesterday and are in cool storage now for a week or two before we try them. If they're as good as they look, they will be a perennial bed crop for us, but will need to find their own home!
I know, right? We didn't film the remainder of these coming out of the ground, but there were some strange looking root tangles as we moved through those beds. Incredible plant for us here.
Not potatoes but blackberry wine... thank you so much for all your help and quickly answered questions, a few months later from August 2021, which is today in December I tasted my blackberry wine and it taste soooooo smooth and good. I’m going to continue letting it sit. I’m so proud. Thank you again for all your help, it was needed with making my very first batch! ❤️
Solid suggestion here Robert. It's funny, because the soil we put into these beds is 1/3 each native soil, compost and sand. Clearly 1/3 is not enough to start with!
Unfortunately my sweet potatoes were killed by the ground squirrels but I'm going to try again. Besides the potatoes I just love all the greens we do eat some of them the rest usually goes to the livestock. You guys are doing really good making an improving the soil looks pretty good
I planted sweet potatoes under my newly planted fruit trees this year. I didn't realize how many roots I would leave behind. I may be weeding them out next year, especially if they are coming up too close to the trunk. They make a beautiful ground cover!
Hey Andrea! That's the primary reason we don't use them as cover around the fruit trees. We don't want any competition for that precious nutrition in the ground. The ground cover is truly incredible though!
I also grew purple sweet potatoes, here in Phoenix! Instead of long skinnies, I got short fatties 😄 I grew them in the crate I built for growing mushrooms. I don’t know if they grew that way because of the loose loamy soil, the amount of water, or if they are just a different variety (Molokai purple from Baker Creek). I also harvested them way too early - ready to grow mushrooms again! 😬
That sandy loam is really what these need to do well. I think part of it is the variety. I'm not sure what variety these are, but the seed potato was pretty skinny as well. I think we went a little too long on these. We lost track of time in November and should have harvested them about 30-45 days ago at around 120-140 days.
Glad you enjoyed this one. We actually pulled them from the high humidity bin yesterday as we started to see a little mold on a couple of them. Now to cold storage for a week or two and then we'll try them.
Glad you enjoyed this one Kylan. They are very easy to grow and make a great ground cover. The only issue is the roots if you're looking at planting these as an understory in a food forest. For young trees it's too much competition for resources in the ground.
Hmmm...the sweet potatoes I had molded very quickly and I live in NM so it obviously wasn’t real high humidity. So I would think that adding humidity would be a problem. Sweet potatoes are the one thing I absolutely must start growing. I eat them daily and put them in my dog’s food so I will be following to see if it was or wasn’t a good thing to add humidity.
Hey L G. We're trying the high humidity curing for the first time this year. Last year we put them right into cold storage and they were ok, so we're hoping these will do well with some time in humidity first.
A broad fork would have done some good with this soil. The challenge we're facing with these new beds is the lack of depth in the soil. I'd say we're at about 8-10 inches at it's deepest points and then we hit hardware cloth. We didn't add manure this time around, but plan on amending with a small amount of chicken manure just before planting in the spring.
I watch another RUclipsr out of NC and he suggests planting sweet potatoes in the same place every year because of the invasive roots. I am not sure if that is true but I thought I would mention that based solely on you mentioning the tiny roots you were not able to remove.
We're kicking around the same idea here. Those beds are destined for annual veggie production and having volunteer sweet potatoes in those beds would be an issue. I'm not sure where they will wind up next, but having a dedicated area would be ideal. There's not much time between harvesting and planting, but just enough window for a cover crop to sneak in there for early spring, so we'll have to figure that out.
have you had any trouble keeping the temperature around 80*F to help cure your sweet potato? I had a heat pad under my curing bin, had added material to help hold in moisture, but some developed mold, some got really soft.... i may not have had enough airflow last year. this coming year i think i am going to try and use an actual curing chamber with fans, dehydrator, and humidifier in order to maintain proper temps and humidity....
Hey guys! We didn't quite hit 80 degrees, but were able to keep it somewhere in the mid 70's. We rotated between keeping the lid off and then on again, but did see some mold start to occur on the last day they were in the bin, so we removed them and placed them in the garage right away to stop the mold from spreading. We've had a few since and they seem to have cured well, with no issues otherwise. I imagine a curing chamber as you're describing would be ideal.
We're wanting to come visit your farm at some point! Starting some things on a much smaller scale. We're just now ready to plant anything. How realistic is it to grow sweet potatoes over the winter instead of summer?
Hey Marie. The sweet potatoes will die back once we start seeing frost, so you'll want to start those in the Spring. Once you plant them and get them established they'll pretty much come back every Spring. Oh and we do have farm tours planned for this Fall and Spring, so you'll want to join our customer email list through our website. That's the only way we announce those.
Ah yes, the sweet potato harvest from last year. Funny thing, those beds are completely filled with sweet potatoes again this year and we didn't plant a single one!
@@putinhynes3848 ah, that makes more sense! Actually, the straw came from our neighbor. They use them for seating around their fire place and then discard them after they wear out. This time around they brought them here instead.
That's a great question and I wouldn't be able to say for sure. 120 days or so is the general rule of thumb for sweet potatoes, so you should be ok to harvest. We were about a month or 2 late on these and we planted in June.
Are you planning on more pigs? Seems to me the only way to monetize the desert. I ask because I am in the midst of purchasing some acreage and not sure if I will ever recover what I am putting in.
Great question and it all depends on demand. We pre-sell each hog (either half or whole) and that determines the number we stock. This year we doubled over last year and that was double the prior year, so not sure where we will tap out. The biggest choke point will eventually become processing. There are only a few in town and they book very quickly.
Sweet Potatoes going right now !
We're looking forward to that first one in the oven here soon as well!
You’ll need more planting beds for all those sweet potatoes! Yum!
Chet, you got that right! We have been trying to figure that out as well. These came out of the high humidity bin yesterday and are in cool storage now for a week or two before we try them. If they're as good as they look, they will be a perennial bed crop for us, but will need to find their own home!
Those are some happy pigs!
Oh, the pigs were just as happy as can be with the sweet potatoes. They had their fill of both the roots and the greens last weekend.
That main root looks like some kind of weird sci-fi movie prop. Whenever you wiggled it around made it looked like alien fingers! 👽
I know, right? We didn't film the remainder of these coming out of the ground, but there were some strange looking root tangles as we moved through those beds. Incredible plant for us here.
Not potatoes but blackberry wine... thank you so much for all your help and quickly answered questions, a few months later from August 2021, which is today in December I tasted my blackberry wine and it taste soooooo smooth and good. I’m going to continue letting it sit. I’m so proud. Thank you again for all your help, it was needed with making my very first batch! ❤️
Oh very cool. I'm so glad to hear that and it makes us feel like we were a part of it!
try adding sand to the bed , it will be less compacted and better drained for bigger spuds
Solid suggestion here Robert. It's funny, because the soil we put into these beds is 1/3 each native soil, compost and sand. Clearly 1/3 is not enough to start with!
Unfortunately my sweet potatoes were killed by the ground squirrels but I'm going to try again. Besides the potatoes I just love all the greens we do eat some of them the rest usually goes to the livestock. You guys are doing really good making an improving the soil looks pretty good
Hey Pamela, definitely try them again. We do the same with the greens, all of our livestock love them!
Wow. I love eating sweet potatoes.
They are one of our favorites and so easy for us to grow! Plus, they come back by themselves every season, so we just planted them once!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Really. That's great to hear.
Nice videos
Glad you're enjoying these!
I planted sweet potatoes under my newly planted fruit trees this year. I didn't realize how many roots I would leave behind. I may be weeding them out next year, especially if they are coming up too close to the trunk. They make a beautiful ground cover!
Hey Andrea! That's the primary reason we don't use them as cover around the fruit trees. We don't want any competition for that precious nutrition in the ground. The ground cover is truly incredible though!
I also grew purple sweet potatoes, here in Phoenix! Instead of long skinnies, I got short fatties 😄 I grew them in the crate I built for growing mushrooms. I don’t know if they grew that way because of the loose loamy soil, the amount of water, or if they are just a different variety (Molokai purple from Baker Creek). I also harvested them way too early - ready to grow mushrooms again! 😬
That sandy loam is really what these need to do well. I think part of it is the variety. I'm not sure what variety these are, but the seed potato was pretty skinny as well. I think we went a little too long on these. We lost track of time in November and should have harvested them about 30-45 days ago at around 120-140 days.
Loved the video, looking forward to see if the curing helps.
Glad you enjoyed this one. We actually pulled them from the high humidity bin yesterday as we started to see a little mold on a couple of them. Now to cold storage for a week or two and then we'll try them.
I did not know any of that! That was VERY informative! Wow
Glad you enjoyed this one Kylan. They are very easy to grow and make a great ground cover. The only issue is the roots if you're looking at planting these as an understory in a food forest. For young trees it's too much competition for resources in the ground.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm yeah! They are very different than regular potatoes. I had no idea! That was really insightful!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm for the record, I have enjoyed them all!
@@kylanve definitely different than regular potatoes. A lot more nutrition in them as well.
@@kylanve you know what they say about variety...spice of life and all!
Great job, epic harvest and thank you for sharing.
Hey Daniel! Glad you enjoyed this one!
Hmmm...the sweet potatoes I had molded very quickly and I live in NM so it obviously wasn’t real high humidity. So I would think that adding humidity would be a problem. Sweet potatoes are the one thing I absolutely must start growing. I eat them daily and put them in my dog’s food so I will be following to see if it was or wasn’t a good thing to add humidity.
Sweet potatoes are very good for doggy tummies, we feed them to our dogs, too.
Hey L G. We're trying the high humidity curing for the first time this year. Last year we put them right into cold storage and they were ok, so we're hoping these will do well with some time in humidity first.
Out standing! Did y'all broad fork before you added the wood chips? and did y'all add chicken or hog poop to the mix?
A broad fork would have done some good with this soil. The challenge we're facing with these new beds is the lack of depth in the soil. I'd say we're at about 8-10 inches at it's deepest points and then we hit hardware cloth. We didn't add manure this time around, but plan on amending with a small amount of chicken manure just before planting in the spring.
I watch another RUclipsr out of NC and he suggests planting sweet potatoes in the same place every year because of the invasive roots. I am not sure if that is true but I thought I would mention that based solely on you mentioning the tiny roots you were not able to remove.
We're kicking around the same idea here. Those beds are destined for annual veggie production and having volunteer sweet potatoes in those beds would be an issue. I'm not sure where they will wind up next, but having a dedicated area would be ideal. There's not much time between harvesting and planting, but just enough window for a cover crop to sneak in there for early spring, so we'll have to figure that out.
have you had any trouble keeping the temperature around 80*F to help cure your sweet potato? I had a heat pad under my curing bin, had added material to help hold in moisture, but some developed mold, some got really soft.... i may not have had enough airflow last year. this coming year i think i am going to try and use an actual curing chamber with fans, dehydrator, and humidifier in order to maintain proper temps and humidity....
Hey guys! We didn't quite hit 80 degrees, but were able to keep it somewhere in the mid 70's. We rotated between keeping the lid off and then on again, but did see some mold start to occur on the last day they were in the bin, so we removed them and placed them in the garage right away to stop the mold from spreading. We've had a few since and they seem to have cured well, with no issues otherwise. I imagine a curing chamber as you're describing would be ideal.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm awesome, glad to hear it worked out for you! keep up the good work!
We're wanting to come visit your farm at some point! Starting some things on a much smaller scale. We're just now ready to plant anything. How realistic is it to grow sweet potatoes over the winter instead of summer?
Hey Marie. The sweet potatoes will die back once we start seeing frost, so you'll want to start those in the Spring. Once you plant them and get them established they'll pretty much come back every Spring. Oh and we do have farm tours planned for this Fall and Spring, so you'll want to join our customer email list through our website. That's the only way we announce those.
👍
Ah yes, the sweet potato harvest from last year. Funny thing, those beds are completely filled with sweet potatoes again this year and we didn't plant a single one!
Where did you purchase the stray? Great information.
Can you clarify on this one Putin? I'm not sure what you mean by stray.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm straw
@@putinhynes3848 ah, that makes more sense! Actually, the straw came from our neighbor. They use them for seating around their fire place and then discard them after they wear out. This time around they brought them here instead.
I planted my sweet potatoes in July or beginning of August. They are still in the container. Ok to harvest in January? End of December?
That's a great question and I wouldn't be able to say for sure. 120 days or so is the general rule of thumb for sweet potatoes, so you should be ok to harvest. We were about a month or 2 late on these and we planted in June.
Are you planning on more pigs? Seems to me the only way to monetize the desert. I ask because I am in the midst of purchasing some acreage and not sure if I will ever recover what I am putting in.
Great question and it all depends on demand. We pre-sell each hog (either half or whole) and that determines the number we stock. This year we doubled over last year and that was double the prior year, so not sure where we will tap out. The biggest choke point will eventually become processing. There are only a few in town and they book very quickly.
Purple Stokes most likely.
Hey Talie. Your suggestion is more than we know, so I say that's what we go with!
Well done! We Love your videos, keep em coming! (Go crypto 😉)
Hey Robert! Glad you're enjoying the content and yes, in it for the long haul on Crypto!
oh, harvest every 3 months
We definitely missed the boat in terms of harvest timing. Typical for us to lose track of time in the Fall!
Great work..
Thank you and glad you enjoyed this one!