Sweet Potatoes!

Yay!  I finally harvested my sweet potatoes and what a harvest it was!  This was the first year I grew these yummy tubers and I was very pleased with the results.  Although I probably did leave them in the ground about 30 days too long.  The trip to Paris & The Netherlands got in the way of that :) 

Two Saturdays ago, on a beautiful fall day, my wonderful husband and I set out to dig up that bed.  The first thing I did was turn the water off on that bed about a week before harvest.  This helps the ground dry out.  I then pulled back and removed all the green vegetation.  In doing so, I discovered this little critter.  I think it's just a garden snake; nothing poisonous.  But I had to physically remove him from my garden.  He liked being buried under the cool, damp, dark leaves.  I just brought him to the end of my garden fence and turned him loose.

Anyway, Harry and I started at one end and just began digging.  Since I have never grown sweet potatoes before, I wasn't sure how they grew.  Well, it seems they grow down and out.  So that made digging them pretty tricky.  We didn't want to damage or break any of the fruit.  So we just systematically dug in the garden with our hands and small garden tools until we dug up the entire bed.  It was a wonderful way to spend a lovely Saturday morning with my usually-very-busy-and-gone-a-lot-husband :) 

When all was said and done, we had harvested about 37 pounds of sweet potatoes!  Yes, 37 pounds.  We weighed the basket empty and it weighed three pounds.  So there ya go!

I had a dinner party for 13 people at my house the following Sunday and guess what was on the menu in addition to smoked tenderloin, sauteed kale and apple cake?  Sweet potatoes! :)  I scrubbed, peeled, cubed, roasted and mashed them with *lots* (and I mean Lots) of butter, milk and half-and half and they were Y.U.M.M.Y!