Wow Michelle, the things you do for us! This took alot of devotion! Last year the deer kept coming and eating all the foliage off my sweet potatoes, so I had a VERY small yield! This year, my son built me a lovely gate around my garden, but I have been trimming back the excess vine, which is significant! I take this to another part of my property for the deer and they eat it up! I'm looking forward to seeing what's going on in that dirt in the Fall! Thank you for this!
I have a theory about sweet potatoes. If you can keep the vines from rooting outside the container, more energy could be shifted into the growth of larger roots right where you want them. I did this for this year's crop and had more harvest than last year's, when I let them vine out wherever.
Thanks Mike. I am definitely doing this experiment again, I have some more ideas now on how to do it better. One thing that surprised me is how dry the bottom of bag B was. We had 5" of rain this week - all this time I've assumed these bags were getting that - clearly they weren't. Any other variables I should try?
Interesting experiment! A ground hog pruned my sweet potato vines heavily last year and my crop was long and skinny like yours
Interesting way to prune them 😉 Thank you for sharing the results. I can hardly wait to try again.
Wow Michelle, the things you do for us! This took alot of devotion! Last year the deer kept coming and eating all the foliage off my sweet potatoes, so I had a VERY small yield! This year, my son built me a lovely gate around my garden, but I have been trimming back the excess vine, which is significant! I take this to another part of my property for the deer and they eat it up! I'm looking forward to seeing what's going on in that dirt in the Fall! Thank you for this!
Thank you. And you're welcome. That's a great use of the extra vines. From my raised bed I take the vines over to the neighbor's for their hens.
I have a theory about sweet potatoes. If you can keep the vines from rooting outside the container, more energy could be shifted into the growth of larger roots right where you want them. I did this for this year's crop and had more harvest than last year's, when I let them vine out wherever.
Very interesting!
I expected B to dominate in size AND amounts...only size seems slightly better.
Hmmm...neat!
Thanks Mike. I am definitely doing this experiment again, I have some more ideas now on how to do it better. One thing that surprised me is how dry the bottom of bag B was. We had 5" of rain this week - all this time I've assumed these bags were getting that - clearly they weren't. Any other variables I should try?
@@michelleinthemeadow maybe the vines in B shed the water more from getting to the soil?
Cant wait to see next experiment!