2012 Orange Sweet Potato Harvest

Over the last 3 years my sweet potato harvest has been steadily increasing. The first year I harvested almost nothing. The second year I harvested a lot more. This year I harvested more orange sweet potatoes above ground then the quantity I harvested last year – below ground!



Above Ground Sweet Potatoes



Some More Sweet Potatoes emerging from the ground



I had purchased the original “seed” potato for my second year of planting from a local farm, Sunzona, through a Whole Foods Market. I contacted Sunzona farms to find out the name of the variety, but they never got back to me. After speaking with several of the produce employees at the Whole Foods Market, one of them explained to me that it was some kind of Garnett. After searching online for a while and comparing all the pictures and vine descriptions I still couldn’t figure out what variety I have. Perhaps it's Beauregard.



This Sweet Potato Harvest came from the ground below the buckets



All but the biggest of the Orange Sweet Potato Harvest



The largest of these tubers, weighing in at almost 5 pounds, was (with no small effort) cut up and diced, then split between two casserole dishes of candied yams for our last Thanksgiving feast. Yes – I know sweet potatoes are not yams, but that is the name of the oven-baked marshmallow-topped dish I serve my family each Thanksgiving.



Large Orange Sweet Potato for Thanksgiving Dinner



Orange Sweet Potatoes chopped up for Thanksgiving Dinner



From my experience, I would not grow sweet potatoes from market bought potatoes unless I knew that they were grown locally.

Here are a few of the many online companies that you can get Sweet Potato Slips from in the U.S.:

- Steele Sweet Potato company 

- Sand Hill Preservation Center  

- New Hope Seed 

- GardenHarvestSupply.com

- George’s Plant Farm 

- Duck Creek Farms

- Brown’s Omaha



Pulling out Sweet Potatoes

Composting with Grubs

In the past, I collected worms from different locations in and out of Tucson and dispersed them into my watered garden. After multiple attempts to start a worm colony in my soil, I have very rarely seen worms, even when watering my garden in the off-season. Without the aid of worms, what living organisms do I discover when I dig in the ground and in my compost? Grubs, of course.





Japanese June Beetle Grub

Because grubs can often eat away at roots, causing havoc to seedlings as well as damaging root crops, my previous tendency was to dispose of them by throwing them violently against a wall. However, because my children have taken the time to spare the lives of some fortunate grubs in buckets, I have experienced a recent change of heart.

Adult Japanese June Beetle

My change of heart transpired while I was upset at my daughter for putting my valuable compost into the grub buckets. As this blog is not devoted to my irrational behavior, I will just note that I need to make a mental impression to not be so quick to judgment. I suppose this is one example of why my wife keeps reminding me of this attribute I need to develop. In any case, once my initial anger about the compost subsided I quickly realized that she had not put any compost into the buckets. Instead, the rhinoceros beetle grubs had eaten away at the wood chips provided for them and turned it into rich compost.



Perhaps grubs can be useful after all.



Inside of Grub bucket - where the compost happens

 




Compost from Grubs

I am continuing to experiment with grubs to determine what environment suits them best, but so far I have learned the following:

1. Larger grubs are easier to work with. I can sift out the compost and leave the grubs if the grubs are larger.



2. Different varieties of beetle require a different diet in their composting environment. The large green Japanese fruit beetles prefer bedding with more nitrogen-rich foods (such as wood chips) while the very large rhinoceros beetle grubs prefer bedding that consists of more carbon-rich foods (such as horse manure).
 

Rhinoceros Beetle Grubs - Pretty gross!



An adult Rhinoceros Beetle

Should I learn any additional information concerning the rearing of grubs for compost purposes, I will gladly add it to this post.

 

If worms don't work - try Composting with Grubs!

Purple Sweet Potato Pie at Christmas

The Friday before Christmas I took my sweet potatoes to a local farmer’s market. Unfortunately, there was very little interest in them. Perhaps I can try again soon.



Making Purple Sweet Potato Pies



The next day I made some purple sweet potato pies in preparation for Christmas. It was humbling to see how much everyone enjoyed the pies - everyone wanted more.



Purple Sweet Potato Pie



Gluten-Free Purple Sweet Potato Pie

I made four pies – two with graham cracker crust and two with a gluten-free crust. I wish that people’s love of pies would translate to their buying my purple sweet potatoes.



Kids love Purple Sweet Potato Pie

Oh well – I’ll just keep trying! (=



21 people + Purple Pie = No more pie.



The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants



While looking at some other books about gardening and vegetable breeding, I happened upon this book by Jane S. Smith. It tells about Luther Burbank, a plant breeder who lived the majority of his life in California around the turn of the 20th Century. Burbank was given the opportunity to follow his passion and, despite how others feel about him, helped to show that, with concerted effort, one can make a living breeding plants. Although parts of the book were laboriously boring, other parts were quite interesting.

What Luther Burbank is widely known for is for the developing of the Russet Burbank potato – the most common potato in the U.S. He happened to find a seed pod growing on another potato variety and, by saving the seeds and planting them selected a potato variety that produced, and kept well, peeled easily, was decently dry, and happened to be resistant to potato blight. One other really fun story was when Luther Burbank grew out thousands of plum trees in a single season by grafting them to almond seedlings.



A very interesting read



Of all the quotes from this book the one I related to the most comes from an address Burbank gave to the American Pomological Society in 1895 on “How to Produce New Fruits and Flowers”. During his address he noted that we must, “listen patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons, one by one, which Mother Nature has to teach… she conveys her truth only to those who are passive and receptive”.

As I came close to the end of this book I thought about whether Luther Burbank was a good or bad for long-term gardening. I believe he was both. He made it possible for seed breeders to make a living by supporting patients on plants and by hybridizing plants. What large companies have done with this have been to work harder to protect current varieties than actual help society with the varieties they produce. The unintended consequence of hybridization is losing seed stock to varieties that may grow better- for only one season. Another negative consequence of Burbanks efforts are that, in creating new and better varieties, no one is willing to preserve the seed of old varieties that may enable the future survival of many plant species.

The positive consequence of Burbanks work is that we now have, from his efforts, many beautiful flowers as well as big, flavorful fruit. Additionally, many Americans have access to fruits and vegetables from around the world that were introduced by Burbank himself. Luther Burbank defined what it means to be a high-quality plant breeder and worked hard to ensure that many of his creations were both a source of nourishment and beauty for society.

Tropical Aspirations

While visiting a friend of mine, who is also an educator and a gardener, he showed me some  tropical plants he had been growing. Though the bananas are in the greenhouse, he has managed to plant some papaya and pineapple outside.



A banana tree growing in a greenhouse

A papaya tree in Tucson



Growing Pineapples in Tucson can be a bit risky.

I may take my chances in my gardening aspirations, but I don’t think I am ready to try growing tropical plants in a Zone 9 climate. I really think what my friend is doing is cool – though I personally have neither the time nor the desire to experiment with exotic tropical plants.