What is the most Difficult Seed you Had Luck with?

[Hal]

That guy from Sand Hill probably knows his sweet potatoes.

He grew up around here. In fact, I think his parents may have been my neighbors when I lived out in the sticks. He said that his Blacktail Mountain watermelon was started here. I don't doubt that because I know where that mountain is. One problem is that I don't know how it got that name since there isn't a Blacktail deer in hundreds of miles from there!

Another problem was when I bought a packet of that watermelon seed, not from Sand Hill but from Seed Savers, not one solitary seed sprouted! . . must've had negative thoughts when I planted 'em.

Steve

I know it wasn't the mountain, somewhere in my collection of things I have where the name for that melon came from but I can't find it right now of course.

 

[Hal]

I don't know if it is long enough or not. I know I cheerfully plant melons every year and about the time they start to form, we cool down. I even start the melons indoors ahead of time. Never thought about too short a season for sweet potatoes. Interesting. Kinda gave up after 3 years of not having success. Any ideas would be great.

What melons have you tried?

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you buy a sweet potato from the grocery store it is probably a Beauregard. That’s what most people think of as a sweet potato, pink/red skin and orange flesh. They actually come in a lot of different colors, skin and flesh. Sometimes the flesh changes color when you cook it. I grew a purple skinned white fleshed one last year, Murasaki, that cooked up a light green. Different varieties taste and act differently.


You have to look at each variety on its own, but generally the red-fleshed sweet potatoes are moister and waxier. Probably sweeter too. You can make great casseroles and such, but they are also delicious baked like a regular baked potato. Generally the white-fleshed are not as moist or waxy. Many of them tend to make a real light fluffy casserole or something like that, but if you bake them like a regular baked potato they are not good. They dry out and shrivel up, don’t stay moist and soft. So how you like a specific variety will depend on how you cook it and your individual tastes. Like Journey, I never met a sweet potato I didn’t like, but I have had to adjust how I cook certain varieties. Those Murasaki were pretty horrible when baked whole but if you make a casserole they are really good. I’ve also just peeled and sliced them, add water, butter, and sugar, and simmered covered on top of the stove until they are cooked, stirring occasionally, but not really very often. Don’t let them run out of water.


The different varieties grow a little differently too but several years back I read that if the weather is dry while they are forming potatoes the roots will get big and fat. If it is wet, they stay long and skinny. My experience follows that. I do believe that is generally true with many different varieties.


The different varieties have different “days to maturity”. Some like Georgia Jets or Beauregard are 90 to 100 days. Some like White Yams are 110 days. Those Murasaki are 120 days. That does not mean that is how many days it will take them to mature at your location, just that some are faster maturing than others. If you are in the north, plant one with lower days to maturity. I had not seen that “heat unit” thing before in Buckabucka’s link, but it makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for that article.


I had not noticed that thing about the more roots the more it shocks them to transplant either. That’s not been my experience but maybe I’m just not paying attention. I have cut a long slip in two if the slip was longer than I wanted when I was planting and stuck the top unrooted part in the ground. As long as I keep the ground moist a couple of weeks it will root and grow. I have noticed those don’t produce any better than the ones that have a lot of roots. On the rare occasion a potato slip dies when I plant it, I have cut off the top of one that is growing and replanted with that. Those don’t produce as well but they are a couple of weeks behind. When I set mine out, I don’t care how many roots they have. After reading that article I may pay more attention to that and see if I notice a difference. Or maybe I won’t.


In my climate I find sweet potatoes one of the easiest things to grow, any variety. They do like it hot so I’m not in a hurry to get them in the garden. They do take a lot of room and run a lot. I plant them maybe 9” apart in a row with the rows about 3-1/2 feet apart, but I leave about 6’ around the outside of that plot for them to run. I usually have to work them twice for weed control, then they are so thick they are pretty much self-mulching. Occasionally I’ll have to pull a pigweed that grows in there. Then I dig them so late in the year the ground has no grass or weed cover so it takes minimal work to get that area ready for the next year’s planting. I have not had to try the mini-greenhouse or the black plastic tricks here but those are ways to get an earlier start up north.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

We plant Georgia Jet up here, they go in a week or two after tomatoes and usually are ready to be pulled up about the same time most watermelons are ripe. We don't use a greenhouse, row cover, or plastic mulch; they go right into the ground. I have not tried sweet potatoes many ways but baked and find them great. I also like the leaves and use them in small amounts just like spinach. Sadly Georgia Jet is the only variety I've ever tried as that's also what they sell at market. The purple skinned variety sounds interesting but probably wouldn't mature up here without protective measures. Maybe I'll try them with black plastic and/or row cover.

I've never met a sweet potato that I didn't like.

Ditto!

 

[buckabucka]

The Fedco catalog sort of implies where the Blacktail Mountain name comes from. The melon was bred to withstand the rigors of the mountainous northern Idaho climate. Fruits are dark green, almost black. So maybe Blacktail is a description of the physical appearance of the melon? I don't know.

On sweet potatoes, is it true that yields go down if the above ground vines are allowed to root? I plant mine in black plastic (even in the hoop house), partly for warmth, partly so I don't have to weed, and partly so those vines have nothing to root onto. I don't remember where I read that, but I try to stop mine from rooting.

 

[digitS']

So, "Blactail," a "mountain watermelon."

No. Not buying that. Although, I really should buy those seeds again - hope springs eternal.

Although it is overshadowed by Bernard Peak, I could see Blacktail Mountain when I lived in Glenn Drowns' boyhood corner of the world.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

The Fedco catalog sort of implies where the Blacktail Mountain name comes from. The melon was bred to withstand the rigors of the mountainous northern Idaho climate. Fruits are dark green, almost black. So maybe Blacktail is a description of the physical appearance of the melon? I don't know.

On sweet potatoes, is it true that yields go down if the above ground vines are allowed to root? I plant mine in black plastic (even in the hoop house), partly for warmth, partly so I don't have to weed, and partly so those vines have nothing to root onto. I don't remember where I read that, but I try to stop mine from rooting.

I don’t know but someone would have to explain why to me and it better be a real good explanation. A lot of times they will produce sweet potatoes where they root out away from the origin of the plant. I’m really doubtful of them producing better if they don’t root. Maybe that has to do with harvesting them commercially by mechanical means?


It will make them harder to dig without cutting some because you might find a sweet potato about anywhere. But sometimes the center of the plant will send out a fairly heavy root three or four feet from the center and make a sweet potato at the end of that, sometimes a real nice sweet potato. I use my hands a lot when digging them to trace out things like that and try to not cut them as much.

 

[seedcorn]

Ridge, thanks for the heads up on moisture to change the tubers. Wondered why some years they are nice and long and other years, huge, fat things.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Same varieties too, isn’t it Seed? I could not go into a court of law and swear that under oath, but from what I’ve seen, I do think it has an effect.


What I normally do is to keep the ground damp until they start to flower, which is supposed to be when they start swelling the roots. Then I only water when the vines start to wilt. It’s been about 4 or 5 years since we had much of a wet late summer here but that year they were long and skinny. Other years they have been pretty big and fat.

 

[Carol Dee]

Just told DH I wanted to try sweet potatoes this year. So much to think about before deciding what to plant.