Oops...I appear to have forgotten to publish this post from last year....
This year has been such a difficult year with snow in March which set everything back and then the heatwave we had over the summer months. We've even had a relatively early frost in these parts in early October. Technically, the heat of the summer should have been ideal for growing sweet potatoes, and I think it would have been, had I been able to get my slips planted out early enough.
This year has been such a difficult year with snow in March which set everything back and then the heatwave we had over the summer months. We've even had a relatively early frost in these parts in early October. Technically, the heat of the summer should have been ideal for growing sweet potatoes, and I think it would have been, had I been able to get my slips planted out early enough.
My main problem this year has been that because we went several months without much rain, I hadn't had the chance to fully dig over the bed where I was planting my slips this year with the result that most of them didn't get planted out until it was way too late to expect any kind of harvest.
In fact the first slips I planted out were a new variety I was trying this year, Carolina Ruby. I'd bought the slips from a company in Scotland called Highland Horticulture rather than one of the big seed companies. Five lovely looking slips arrived at the end of April whereupon I put them in water to revive them a little before putting them in pots.
Interestingly, their care instructions said not to keep the slips in pots for too long as this can result in twisted tubers; something I suffer from so I think going forwards I'll try and plant my slips out earlier and hope to avoid keeping them potted up for too long.
I decided to plant three plants per polytunnel again and planted out the first three Carolina Ruby plants in early June. Bonita, Muraski and one Belle Vue were planted out shortly afterwards. Three Beauregard were planted out mid June but by then the ground was already getting hard to dig over. The last Caroline Ruby plants and a Belle Vue were planted out mid July and two Orleans a week later. The last week of July really was way too late to plant them out but I crossed my fingers and hoped.
All the plants were covered by the mini polytunnels again which has kept them nice and warm. However, the plastic was getting to the end of its life and was becoming brittle. A strong wind in early autumn devastated the tunnels so the plants have been covered by fleece for the last couple of months of their growing season.
Being busy with work meant I wasn't able to dig up the tubers until the first week of November. I hoped against hope that maybe that little bit of extra time might make a difference. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Who knows?!
So how was this year's harvest? Pretty disappointing as I guessed it would be but on the plus side I've got a decent tuber from each variety that I'm setting aside to grow slips from for next year. I think I'll start them after Christmas.
The best performing plants were unsurprisingly the Carolina Ruby ones that were planted out first. Even then I only got about a kilo of tubers from those three plants.
Next best was Bonita (500g), followed by Belle Vue (380g), Orleans (355g), Murasaki (330g) and Beauregard a measley 195g.
Quite surprised by the Orleans harvest. Although I've got a slight feeling I've mixed the rows up from my notes of what was planted where as the Beauregard have quite dark skins and I'm surprised I got any harvest from the Orleans slips as not only were they planted out late, but they were also very small slips.
Plan for next year? I'm going to cover them with fleece going forwards. Trying to pick up little bits of plastic polytunnel that disintegrate as you touch them hasn't been much fun. Also, I'm wondering about putting black plastic/weed suppressant down and planting through that to see if that makes a difference.
As ever, watch this space.
Thanks for reading.
Joanna
