September
Yes; sweet potatoes in September.
Sweet potatoes are so easy to grow, and we love them. I planted a lot of sweet potatoes this year-- almost three times as many as I typically do. My husband encouraged me to plant more than usual. He urged me to plant lots of them. He begged me "pretty please" and promised me his first born if I planted lots of sweet potatoes. (OK. I think his very adult first born would have something to say about that.)
So I ordered almost twice my usual amount from K-State; their slips are very inexpensive and they comes as small, unrooted slips. They are shipped to a local hardware store, where we pick up our pre-paid slips, selecting them from boxes full of green slips. Local market growers get some of their sweet potato slips this way. We can order as many or as few as we wish, however. I ordered 40; 15 each of two varieties and 10 of a third.
Forty sweet potato slips sounded like a lot of sweet potato potential to me. However, last year K-State delayed their slip delivery by a month because weather delayed the planting for slips (more about how to grow your own slips later) and we got very few sweet potatoes. So my husband was a little nervous about this year's delivery, especially when we got word that the delivery would be delayed by a week or so. He then stopped by a local nursery and bought 25 large, well-rooted slips. This was just after the middle of a rainy, chilly May, at least two weeks earlier than I usually plant sweet potatoes. I planted them right away, though. They did quite well in spite of the less than ideal planting weather. They are very forgiving plants. I was able dig them about the middle of September.
The other slips arrived not much later than usual, in early June. I stuck them all in water for several days to get some roots going. That's not necessary, you can plant slips directly in the soil, but I always feel better about planting slips that have at least started rooting. By mid-June I had planted them all.
The weather had gone from chilly and rainy to very hot and dry. Sigh. So I stretched shade cloth over the newly planted slips and watered them every day. Most of them survived. Hurray. I dug those at the end of September.
Usually I wait until they forecast frost in mid-October. But I wanted to avoid the rush of trying to dig more than 60 hills of sweet potatoes, while dragging out old blankets and sheets to protect the summer vegetables I wanted to save and throwing frost blanket row cover over the fall lettuce. Besides, I figured that in September and early October we'd still have enough heat to keep the attic warm enough to "cure" the sweet potatoes. Curing for one to two weeks heals wounds (I always poke a few with the garden fork or break them while pulling them out), dries them a bit so they keep longer, and, most important, converts starches to sugars and improving the flavor.
It was difficult waiting two weeks to eat the sweet potatoes.
Four different varieties went into the ground. I don't know what variety went in first -- most likely Beauregard, as that is a commonly planted orange variety. The nursery had only that one, so that's what my husband got. The other three, from left to right in the photo were Bonita (white skin, white flesh), Covington (all orange), and Murasaki (a Japanese variety with purple skin and white flesh). In the past I've also planted an all-purple variety. I was somewhat disappointed in their production, and the slips are hard to find and expensive. However, my husband insists that I try them again next year. All righty, then. Apparently a yellow sweet potato variety also exists. I was not aware of that before. I may search out a source for slips next year. O'Henry is the variety that someone told me about.
Next year, I think I will give the white and Japanese sweet potatoes a little extra time in the ground, as they had many more of the small tubers and fewer really large ones than the orange varieties. However, for the most part, they produced a lot more tubers per plant.
White and Japanese sweet potatoes are a bit sweeter than the orange varieties. The purple ones are starchier, but quite nice.
As I said before, sweet potatoes are easy to grow. Other than some TLC when the slips first go in the ground, you can almost ignore them. They grow best in loose, loamy soil, but will grow in almost anything but concrete. Of course, the tighter the soil, the weirder the tubers will look. I've also grown them successfully in large tubs. I hardly ever water sweet potatoes. The only real work I do with them during the growing season is to cut back the vines so they don't cover the paths and other vegetable beds. You can eat the tender growing tips as a summer green, if you wish.
Rather than spend a lot more space on describing how to create your own sweet potato slips, here is a link to one of many sites with that info. The only thing I would add here it that it is not necessary to pot up your slips before putting them in the garden.
A final note: You can do a lot more with sweet potatoes than the sickly sweet, marshmallow topped sweet potato casserole that I grew up eating at Thanksgiving. They need no added sugar and can be savory as well as sweet. I must do a blog with our recipes for various garden vegetables. That will definitely include my Southwest style sweet potato salad, and others.
Locally, October was declared Sweet Potato Month a few years ago. Apparently there are some national observances, as well, in February (Why February?) and November.
But now seems like a great time to Celebrate Sweet Potatoes!
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