Sweet Potatos

We planted sweet potatoes this spring for the first time. We planted about 15 feet of a row. We were told in the New England climate it would be best to grow them under black plastic so we did. Today we harvested and they did well. There were some that seemed to have some splits in them as you can see in the pictures. First I thought maybe some kind of insect but after cleaning and cutting one open it may be from to much water or not enough water. What do you think?
Wally

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/sweetpotato.cfm

They look like Beauregards, the cracking comes from too much water
boss

i agree with the Boss. you did good let em cure for a while and they get sweeter(or they do down here)

I think your sweets look way better than mine from last year. I am not sure how they should be grown. I thought mine were not very good and longer rather than fat like yours.

I would like a variety that keeps well for a couple of months at least. Ours started to go bad shortly after getting out of the ground.

I know there is a lot of confusion between sweet potatos, yams, etc. I think I would like to try some other varietys.

People don't seem to know much about them around here.


How do they taste?

Thackery

what do you mean you grew them under plastic. last year was the first year I've tried to grow sweat potatos and I had them in the low end of the garden. it got real wet in the late summer and they sat in very wet ground and rotted. I'll try again this spring since I love them.

Todd

On this black plastic, what do you do with it before you dig or what becomes of the plastic? Is it a plastic or a weed-cloth that lets water in. I've started a potato for my plants. Hope I'm not to early getting a start.
Ron in Mid Missouri

I like sweet taters....alot of growers in our area. I live about 1 1/2 hours from what many call the sweet potato capital of the world...Vardaman, MS. They grow 'em there and cook 'em there:

http://sweetpotatosweets.com/

We started them hilled and then put down the black plastic. It was poly plastic and is removed when harvested. Once hilled we cut a slot in the poly and planted the slipps. Watered and harvested at the end of October(in New England). This year our plan is to plant more, maybe a 40 ft row. We will use less water as there will be limited water at this field. The direction we had to store was to put them in a very warm area 90+/- for w eek then in a cool location. We are baking some tonight and most of them are still very firm.
Wally

Wally, just how do you water them. One at a time in the slot that you made when planting? How would it be done for a large field? I just plant a small row but was just wondering how it is done in a larger scale.
Ron in Mid Missouri

Well I only had a small row this past year. I watered with my auto lawn sprinkler for that garden. I think very little water would get to the sweet potato's but I think the key is that very little would evaporate thru the black poly. This will be my first time planting a row in the field with limited water.
Wally

My niece's father-in-law planted 400 plants, in one of my fields, last year. He watered manually, through the slits in the plastic. I hauled a plastic drum of water out there, and he filled his watering cans, from it, and lugged water up the rows. Ed