Sweet Taters

So, we harvested the sweet potatoes.

I initially bought a pack of 9 plants at Lowe's for about $3.  I had no real idea what sort of conditions they needed to grow, but I put them in the ground between a row of yellow cucumbers and a row of tomatoes.  They spread some, but around mid-summer they took off, vining all over the garden.  When the cucumbers died, they took that space over, and vined up into the tomatoes and the peppers.

As summer turned into fall, the ground where the slips were initially planted started to mound up like hills.  I knew the roots were big, but I didn't really expect the size and quantity that we got.

The end result was 2 five-gallon buckets full of sweet 'taters.  At least 30 pounds of them.  Some were huge and beautiful.  Some were thin and scraggly.  A small number of them looked like they had cracked and healed at some point.  The only problem is that we now have to wait to eat them.

Apparently, you have to cure your yams for 6 to 8 weeks to make them taste right.  If you try to bake them right away, they don't come out sweet or soft.  At least that's what the interwebz say.  You're supposed to put them in a warm place with high humidity for 5 days, and them store them at 60 degrees at regular humidity for the rest of the 6 to 8 weeks.  So, we won't have sweet potato casserole for Turkey Day, but we should for Festivus.  Yum.