Thanksgiving, Here We Come

The hard freeze killed the forest of sweet potato vines.

All these leaves collapsed, leaving a tangle of vines. Now the time had come to harvest the crop. Being able to see the vines, one is able to find the exact spot where each plant originated.

Once a main stem has been located, the soil around it can loosened using a potato fork. Pulling away the loosened soil exposes the sweet potatoes. We had  planted some of the slips in a new, unimproved section of the garden. The soil is pure clay loam. It was dry and hard. It’s a good thing for us that sweet potatoes like poor, dry soil. Dennis loosened and pulled away the soil around this plant, revealing its clump of potatoes.

Then, using the trowel, he carefully dug away the soil surrounding the clump.

Although he spent more than ten minutes carefully digging them out, the end of one broke off. These are either Japanese yams or Garnet yams. I can't tell them apart.

This plant, grown in an older part of the garden, where the soil has been amended with organic matter, was much easier to harvest. Dennis merely loosened the soil with the fork, tugged on the plant stem, and pulled the potatoes free.

The main trick to harvesting sweet potatoes is to follow this method and don’t rush it. Still, some will break or be impaled on a tine of the fork. These should be cooked right away because they won’t cure properly. The evening we harvested I cleaned and trimmed the broken ones and boiled them in their skins. After they had been drained and cooled, we peeled them and mashed them with buttermilk. (Yes, buttermilk.) Chopped crystalized ginger gave the dish an extra dimension. It was delicious.

I’ll be making mashed sweet potatoes again several times this coming winter. We have a plentiful supply. The largest ones, all Beauregards, weigh more than two pounds each.

Thanksgiving, here we come.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer