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Post by macmex on Mar 18, 2023 1:10:37 GMT
Most years I wish I had waited longer to bed my roots. It's such a struggle to keep them warm when our Oklahoma temperatures do their "roller coaster thing." Still, it's nearing the end of Spring Break and Jerreth, my wife, graciously offered to help me with this task. Today we worked on it and managed to bed (in trays) the following varieties:
Ginseng Orange
Korean Pink
Brinkley White
Japanese White
Old Yellow
Grand Asia
Red Wine Velvet
There are still more to go but we had to quit in order to do chores and... we're expecting temps to drop to 21 F tonight. This meant EVERYTHING had to be carried from the greenhouse to our house, to stash for the night. The greenhouse would simply get too cool.
I won't be offering everything I've started as the 2022 harvest was so poor that I didn't get enough to do a full flat of some varieties. For instance, I put out something like 20 plants of Grand Asia (usually a very heavy producer) and only harvested 5 roots!
More to come.
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Post by communitygardener on Mar 23, 2023 14:46:51 GMT
Hello,
I saw in one of your posts last fall that you may want some volunteers to try and take on some of the varieties as you are going to be cutting back. I could try to take on 1 or 2. I have a small home garden, and also a couple of spots at our community garden. Please let me know if this would be ok with you.
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Post by macmex on Mar 24, 2023 13:16:16 GMT
Yes! Stay tuned while I get organized and can list all possible varieties. We will need to talk about your preferences too, as most folk better preserve varieties they really like. Thank for dropping in!
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Post by macmex on Mar 29, 2023 16:28:18 GMT
Well, as of March 26 I believe I finished bedding my sweet potatoes for the year. It was good to inventory things too. I didn't mess up on harvest as badly as I had thought, though there is still a little doubt in my mind, especially in regard to Vietnamese Red. Here are some photos of the greenhouse. Brinkley White and Ginseng Orange have already sprung up and are starting to grow.
I have more varieties than ever, when counting the experimental crosses. I finally chose to regrow three of last year's experimental crosses, dropping #3Seedling2022, which though quite good, has nothing distinct enough about it to merit the founding of a new variety. The other three seem to but I will have to grow them out again to be sure. I need volume of harvest for a proper trial.
With some, I had so few roots to bed that I can't offer them this year. Just hoping to reestablish my own stock. Here's a list of what I can confidently offer this year:
Barberman - orange skin and flesh, vining growth, heart shaped leaf, good yields, early,
concentrated root set for easier digging. Early. Excellent keeper. If you want a
“normal,” traditional flavor and texture, this one’s a good one.
Brinkley White - Tan skin, white/light yellow flesh, heart shaped leaves, running vines,
good yields, excellent sweet flavor, good keeper, mid season
Ginseng Orange - Early, orange skin and flesh, semi bush grow, ivy leaf, good yields
and flavor. Excellent keeper and produces slips very easily. Some of our customers
consider this one to be nearly ideal.
Gunlock – White flesh, tan skin, fairly moist. Good flavor and good keeper. Heirloom from Gunlock, KY.
Hi Orange – red skin, orange flesh. Original roots produced plants with leaves different than Red Wine Velvet but in the very first growing season those plants’ leaves changed shape and became identical to Red Wine Velvet’s. I’d be hard pressed to tell the two varieties apart.
Japanese White - Excellent production of blocky purple skinned roots that have white, flesh. This one has a dense, sweet, somewhat moist flesh. My wife describes this one as “sugary sweet, like candy.” Easy to dig, with most roots right below the main stem.
Korean Pink – This one was new to me last year, sent to me by my friend Alex Brown, up in Michigan. He claims that it makes an acceptable substistute for Okinawa, for those who crave that sweet, mealy, Asian kind of eating experience. These Asian varieties can be mealy, sweet and moist, all at the same time. I only managed to put out four slips in 2022 but they did produce well, given the terrible year we had. Roots are red skinned, blocky, globular in shape and produced abundantly, directly under the main stem (easy to dig). I sent some slips to Sandhill Preservation Center and they reported that the flesh was a lighter color than the root we sampled. The root we sampled was dark maroon colored on the inside. Indeed, this one is mealy, sweet and moist like a good Asian sweet potato. I didn’t think it to be as sweet as Okinawa but it was good.
Oklahoma Red - Heart shaped leaves, red skin, orange flesh, excellent productivity, moist & sweet. This one was developed for heavy soils. Very dependable main crop sweet potato.
Old Yellow – This one was new to me last year, being sent to me in a swap with Clif Slade of Slade Farms which sells slips out of Virginia. Clif obtained his start from an old farmer in Virginia who had kept it going for years. This one has a russet/yellow tinted skin and dry, mealy sweet, yellow flesh. This one produces a dense root. I can feel that it’s heavier for its size when I pick on up. Excellent storage qualities. Slow to sprout.
I'm not putting out a flyer this year, as I need to avoid getting overwhelmed with orders but if you are frequenting this forum, feel welcome to inquire.
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Post by macmex on Apr 7, 2023 22:28:46 GMT
Looks like I could have waited yet a little longer before bedding my sweet potatoes. Look how they're growing!
The green house is getting pretty warm in the afternoons and I run a heater in there at night to keep it above 50 F. The largest of the plants, seen in this photo belongs to Brinkley White. That one is super fast at starting to grow, once bedded. Yet it is a good keeper.
Every sweet potato variety I've bedded is up and starting to grow, at least to some degree, except...
Old Yellow. Its roots are still quite solid and I'm positive it will grow nice slips. Some varieties are just slower to get going. This can be a problem for one producing slips, but not really much of a problem for most growers who get to know the quirks of the variety.
Today I bedded a few more, including some Hopi, which I had accidentally lost last year. A friend sent me a few roots to get it started again.
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Post by macmex on May 6, 2023 12:47:33 GMT
Here's a picture of just part of my slip production, taken on 4/22/2023. I am experiencing the same issues as most years:
1) I vacillate between fearing that I won't be able to cover the demands of orders that come in and... that I am not going to sell enough to justify the work of production.\
2) I ALWAYS start my slips too early. Need to make yet another note, to start later (and set the date now).
Should note that long vines are not a real problem with slip production. Once can simply cut the vines in lengths, say about 8" long. The pieces without roots can be planted directly or set in water for 3 days to get the start of roots. It really doesn't make much difference.
Some varieties have a more leggy growth habit, when it comes to sprouting. Brinkley White, for example, will sprout super fast when bedded and shoot up really long vines while other varieties are barely waking up. Ginseng Orange, on the other hand appears to have been bred by someone thinking about slip production for mail order. It wakes up pretty easily, makes a slew of slips, which upon reaching 8" will pause growth for several weeks. It's as if the roots are saying, "Here you go. Come harvest the slips before I start more." Once the slips are harvested, Ginseng Orange will go ahead and repeat the process. |
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Post by macmex on Jun 12, 2023 17:03:22 GMT
I MUST bed slips LATER next year, perhaps an entire month later. This year I lost all of my Old Yellow and half of my Japanese White, while they were bedded in the greenhouse. They got chilled in spite of the heater. I now have no Old Yellow at all.
This has been a most challenging year as we've had many commitments and I've been unable to get my own sweet potatoes planted. Yesterday (June 11) I managed to get about 1/3 of my slips, but without installing drip irrigation or plastic mulch. I've simply had to plant them in order not to lose them.
Here's what I got planted yesterday:
10 Grand Asia
8 Hopi
4 #2Seedling2022
4 White Eclipse
9 Red Wine Velvet
9 Japanese White
5 Ginseng Orange
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Post by macmex on Jun 26, 2023 16:00:09 GMT
spoThe Okinawa sweet potatoes I bedded failed to sprout. This was almost certainly due to getting chilled. Today, June 26, I finished planting my sweet potatoes and examined the last of my bedded Okinawa roots. They were rotting. I went into our pantry and poked around in our leftover roots from last year. Bingo! I found a couple of Okinawas in a neglected corner and one was sprouting!
I planted the whole thing in my row, marking it, and leaving space for two more plants, if I can get it to make some more slips before the end of the first week of July. I'm happy. With this, I'm likely to renew my stock for the future. I really wanted to experiment with this one a bit more, to see if I could get dependable harvests here.
Lesson learned: I need to keep a couple roots of each variety in my storage until I have them planted and growing in the garden.
'nother lesson learned: Do not bed roots until it is really warm for several weeks in a row! A cold snap can ruin a batch of bedded roots.
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