2013 All Purple Harvest

In early April, when Tucson’s average high temperature rose above 80 degrees, I put out my All Purple Sweet Potatoes to start growing slips.

 

A few All Purple Slips I transplanted though I will probably not transplant next year.

 

With some EM-1 my slips really took off by mid-may

 

 

Slips can take a long time to start – especially if being grown indoors. That is why I have been working on a new way to start my slips outdoors. Though I have greatly improved my method for growing sweet potato slips, I believe that my sweet potatoes do much better when I wait until May 1^st to start growing out slips.



 

My second harvest of sweet potatoes required a flashlight to procure

 

When the time finally came to harvest my All Purple sweet potatoes from the garden, I had to do so a little at a time. It is difficult to harvest a sweet potato that can mature over a foot below the ground, and doing so requires loose soil and some dedicated time to feel through the soil by hand.

 

 

Some of my first harvest of All-Purple Sweet Potatoes

 

 

Some of my second All-Purple Sweet Potato Harvest

 

 

One of my larger All-Purple Sweet Potatoes

 

 

Another large All-Purple Sweet Potato.

 

 

By the end of my harvest I felt both good and bad. It seems that the quality of this variety of sweet potatoes decreased from going into the ground so early. A few of the larger sweet potatoes did not exhibit the color or texture I would have expected from this variety. On the other hand the harvest of 95 pounds was a nice way to finish my summer garden harvest.



Some of my second All Purple Sweet Potato Harvest. Can you find the nickle?