Sweet Potato Harvest 2010

[DuckCreekFarms]

With container gardening all the rage, I decided to try a few sweet potato slips in a large container. I don't know if it is a 15 or 20 gallon container, but it is about 22 inches across and about 17 inches deep. Well, my experiment proved to be successful as I harvested nearly 20 pounds from that one container.

I am just now starting to harvest the sweets in the field, but it is looking like it's going to be a great year. I received an email from Glenn Drowns and he says he is having a great sweetpotato season as well.

The pics are from my container harvest. two different views about 20 pounds.

[rxkeith]

thats good news.

i just dug my sweet potatoes, and it's kind of a good news, bad news thing. the good news is that i can grow sweet potatoes in my area, some got pretty big. the bad news is that we aren't the only ones that like them. many of them were hollowed out or on their way there. i attribute that to a healthy rodent population here in my area. i have seen their tunnels. looks like i may have to give container growing a shot if i want to get a decent harvest. my slips came from glenn at sandhill preservation.
what kind of container mix did you use?


keith

[DuckCreekFarms]

I just used a peat-lite mix (LC-1) with 40 percent fine pine bark mixed in. It is very drainable and need lots of watering, but they grew pretty good. Peaty soils tend to make sweet potatoes more "Off" color, but they are still good eating quality. I am getting ready to plant some fall strawberrries in the same container.

[wmontanez]

Nice harvest!. I am ordering 6 to 12 slips of the northern sampler from Sandhill preservation next spring. Being from the caribbean I love sweet potatoes, but the varieties we grow there are long season (5-6mo) and never though I could grow them in New England until I found that catalog . I will use your idea of a container. I calculated the dimensions you mention and got aprox 5cu ft (30gals). How many slips did you plant in that container? I have a plastic 55 gal drums that I could cut the top or along the side....I found some evidence that few of my potatoes were eatten by some critter... found the round holes near my plants too. That way I can plant one or 2 in the ground and some in the container.