Posts in category: apprentices

First frost can be a hassle for season extension.  Rows have to be covered with fabric or plastic or buried in mulch.  Our first frost was last Sunday, and not much got covered.  The struggling cucumbers were easily killed as were the sweet potato vines.  Basil seemed to hold up; straw covered tomatoes also stood through the cold air.

Noel read up on how frost can affect sweet potatoes and determined that it would be best if we dug them up promptly.  Another frost was coming, we had the hands needed to get the job done and it seemed like a fun project for a Monday evening.

We had planted quite a few varieties to see how they would come out.  The sizes and yields varied with the only constant being that the roots may have been held back by the thick clay soil.  Sweet potatoes really prefer a light soil and a long frost-free growing season.  Our area is great for the frost-free part but not so much on the for the light soil.

Kristin, Gray, Noel and myself tore up the dying vines, feeding them to the waiting pigs.  Pigs love sweet potato vines. They are great nutrition for people as well.  Next year I plan to try to ferment a few and see how they taste.

With the dying vines pulled up we had to race a dropping sun.  We dug as much as we could in the fading light, but ended up resorting to head lamps for the last hour of harvesting.  I’m not sure if we missed any in the surrounding darkness.  I guess we’ll find out in the Spring when volunteers start shooting up from the soil.

The potatoes spent the night in our room cuddling with the wood stove.  Noel and Gray moved them into the greenhouse to cure for a while.  Curing is a whole other scene…