I've talked and talked...and talked and talked...and then talked some more about our drought. My garden faired better than I thought it might. But one of the things that faired the best was a plant I don't even like ;-) The rest of my family LOVES sweet potatoes, but I have never appreciated their taste.
Today was the day to finally harvest the crop.
I had cut the top off of the potato plants before our first freeze, so dad had to hunt a little bit to find each hill of potatoes. One of the first hills (or one plant) he dug up had 8.5 lbs of potatoes on it!
You can see that some of the potatoes were quite healthy! Somehow we did manage to over-water them during a drought and the majority of them were split, but they will still be ok to eat. It just means they don't look as pretty.
This is my hand. I was trying to use it as an indicator of how big the potatoes got...it doesn't work quite as well when you can't even see my hand! However, I guess the fact that it covers my entire hand except my fingertips is still a pretty good indicator.
This is dad's hand. I think one potato like this will probably feed a couple of people for one meal.
After the potatoes were all dug up, we placed them on a screen in the shed in my backyard. We wanted the mud on them to dry up so we can clean them off easier. We elevated the screen so mice can't crawl onto it and have a little feast.
After the potatoes dry off and we have cleaned them, we will move them into a more stable climate (probably in my basement) so they will keep longer.
Yep, the one that doesn't even like them gets to keep them in her house ;-) That's ok. I enjoy seeing the joy on the faces of my family members and also friends when I get to deliver some to them. That's part of the joy of a garden. I love seeing the sweat and labor throughout such a hot summer pay off with sharing the crop with loved ones. I'll plant sweet potatoes every year just to get that type of a reward ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment