Harvesting Sweet Potatoes: Digging up can be helpful
Created: 09/22/2022, 08:00
By: Anna Katharina Kusters
While not related to the potato, sweet potatoes are very similar.
They must be out of the bed in mid-October, preferably before the first frost.
As an alternative to the classic potato, the sweet potato is a real blessing.
As the name suggests, it tastes a little sweeter, but can be processed in the same way as the conventional tuber.
In mid-October she has to be out of the bed so that she is still edible.
Garden fans have to act with tact.
Harvesting sweet potatoes: How to get the tubers out of the ground
Sweet potatoes should be pulled out of the ground before the first frost.
© Stock&people/Imago
The sweet potato is native to South America, from where it came to Europe via Spain in the 15th century.
Although the sweet potatoes look similar to conventional potatoes and can be processed almost identically, they are not related to the tubers.
Currently, most of the sweet potatoes sold in Germany still come from the USA.
According to the Federal Center for Nutrition (BZfE), they are harvested there in October and stored in refrigerated warehouses for up to a year.
So it is possible that sweet potatoes can also be bought in Germany in March.
If you want to eat something more sustainable sweet potatoes that have not traveled so far, you can also grow the tubers in your own garden.
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It is particularly important that the location of the sweet potatoes is as protected and warm as possible.
The tubers thrive very poorly or not at all in windy places with clay soil.
In this country, it grows best in raised beds or greenhouses, since gardeners can protect them better there, not least from snails.
Gardeners should refrain from sowing, it works better to prefer sweet potatoes from tubers or to propagate them from cuttings.
Harvesting sweet potatoes: this is how it works
Once garden fans have brought the plant through the summer, it is time for the harvest in autumn.
As the
Bayerischer Rundfunk
(BR) reports, it is important to get the tubers out of the ground before the first frost.
A first ground frost can destroy the entire harvest because the tubers become mushy immediately when they freeze.
When harvesting the sweet potatoes, gardeners proceed as follows:
1. Get a shovel or digging fork.
2. Tear off the leaves of the sweet potatoes, sometimes a few tubers are already stuck to them.
3. Carefully dig up the remaining sweet potatoes.
It is sometimes necessary to look deep into the ground, because some bulbs only appear after a few centimeters of soil.
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Gardeners should then thoroughly wash and dry the tubers they have collected.
Sweet potatoes can then be stored for a wonderfully long time with the so-called sandbox trick.
They can then be used to prepare various delicious dishes such as sweet potato fries, sweet potato gratin, sweet potato chips and sweet potato coconut soup.