I grew about 10 sweet potato seedlings this year. The one with the biggest tuber has white flesh, which I cooked up and found that it tastes pretty much like what I was hoping to find in sweet potato seedling: only background sweetness and rich buttery texture. I enjoy most of the 3-4 sweet potato types from the store in certain recipes, but for me the more subdued flavor is easier to work with as a staple food. I remember not being crazy about the commercial white cultivar at the store, but its been a while I’ll have to try it again.
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I may have jumped the gun judging this seedling, as someone was telling me that harvesting after a frost sweetens up the tubers. We had a long fall and I dug them prior to frost. I suppose they sweeten up in storage too regardless of frost exposure. It’s been years since I grew sweet potatoes, and I’m eating more true yams lately which don’t sweeten up. It will be fun to see if I can select for a low sweet kind with great texture.
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I haven’t noticed them sweetening up after frost, but they definitely do after curing indoors in a warm environment. The white fleshed ones also seem to be denser and less sweet, and don’t get as soft when cooked, so that might make them a little more versatile as a staple food.
No, that’s quite the opposite. If tubers experience temperatures below 10C/50F for even short periods they will get cold damage that prevents them from converting starch to sugars even if you try to cure them. It also makes them spoil more easily during storage. It depends on where you are located and what kinda year you are having whether tubers experience under 10C/50F temperatures during frost. Sweet potatoes also need ground to be at least 20C/68F to grow significantly so there isn’t really any incentive to wait to harvest them. I have seen in some facebook groups that commercial growers start harvesting them when the ground gets to 15C/59F. At that point, there is still time before the ground gets to 10C/50F, but there is also very little chance that the ground would warm up enough to make any significant growth.
Yea Mike, the denser maybe little more fibrous texture. I enjoyed growing them, definitely going to try and keep the seed production going.
Thanks for the info Jesse. In the fall here it can get below 10C and above 20C in the same day, but better still harvesting them early anyway. This year I was waiting to harvest them because some seedlings were maturing seed, and they were all together in a clump.
I hope you don’t mind me advertising for you @MikeJennings but there’s true sweet potato seeds available at Diablo Valley Farm website for anyone who’s interested.
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Would you mind sharing a link? (Not being lazy, just so much easier with a toddler trying to take my phone, haha)
Not Rylan, but I looked this up myself because it sounded interesting… Diablo Valley Farm sweet potato seed
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