So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

KimB

Soon as we all cook sweet potatoes...

It's getting to gardening time again and I figured I should bring folks up-to-date on my potato obsession. Last year I tried sweet potatoes.

When the time came to harvest I stuck a finger, then 2 fingers, then a hand into the pot and got "nothing". Not even a rock pretending to be a sweet potato. Sigh....

So I decided to put something else in the pot and upended my container into a big garbage can I use for this and you won't guess what was hiding AT THE BOTTOM of the pot!

SWEET POTATOES! LOTS OF THEM!

They didn't grow like the taters at the surface, they burrowed right down to the bottom of the pot and even threw roots out the drain holes. There they were, neatly stacked one on top of the other!

We had enough big ones to eat stand alone and I had more than enough to make mashed sweet potatoes for the holidays. I still have enough to cook up for another meal or two.

The big ones I baked normally, the small ones I covered in water with their jackets still on, so they wouldn't dry out, and cooked them in the microwave. Once they were cooked and cooled a bit the jackets slid right off.

And you can certainly guess what's going into the garden this spring ...

Nearly all "sweet potatoes or yams" sold in the US are just "sweet potatoes". The orange flesh colored sweet potatoes are marketed as "yams" but are not "real yams" which are totally unrelated to sweet potatoes. There are more than 6,500 types of sweet potatoes and the sweet potato flesh comes in all colors from white to deep red. Lighter colored sweet potatoes are less "sweet" than the deeper colored varieties.

Sweet potato leaves can be eaten and are a delicacy in some parts of the world. The leaf shapes vary depending on the variety and are generally heart shaped, ranging from a leaf with a single point to leaves that have 5 points. Last year, I had the heart shaped single point leaf type but the batch I have starting for this year, turned out to be the heart shaped 5 pointed leaf type.

Regardless color or leaf shape: they all taste delish!!!

Sweet Potato Harvest 2014