Got a "Sweet" Package in the Mail

Sweet potatoes come up on their own in late spring each year in our garden.  That's been happening for a number of years now and it is a blessing.  We think that they came up probably from a sweet potato that we composted perhaps 8 or so years ago.  It's the gift that keeps on giving and we've harvested several hundred pounds of sweet potatoes over the years and never had to plant them.

The sweet potatoes that are sold in the store are good.  I always enjoy eating sweet potatoes.  The cows love to eat the sweet potato vines after we harvest them each fall.  Here's the thing about the sweet potatoes that you buy at the store - they are mass produced and the varieties, although good, are developed for their look, their yield and their hardiness - not necessarily their taste.

My son recently had the opportunity to go to an agricultural convention in Kentucky.  While there he had an opportunity to visit a farmer from Tennessee who had brought some heirloom sweet potatoes that he grows back on his farm.  Russ said they were small to medium in size, but the taste.  Oh, the taste!  Russ said that they tasted like someone had sprinkled cinnamon, brown sugar, and honey on them.  He said they were unbelievable.  His first thought was that we've been conditioned to think we know what sweet potatoes taste like, but eating this heirloom sweet potatoes made Russ realize that this was a "real" sweet potato.

Well, this package came in the mail the other day...

A sweet package!

Yep, you guessed it.  The farmer sent Russ three (3) of his heirloom sweet potatoes for us to try and grow.  We'll have to find out what the name of this variety is, but I'm so curious to grow them and taste them as Russ really bragged about them.

Three heirloom sweet potatoes

So we decided to plant them each in a pot cover them with soil and keep the soil moist.  Our goal is to get them growing.  My son works with sweet potatoes and knows how to harvest slips.  Slips are simply sweet potato 'shoots' from sweet potato vines that can be planted.  One thing he taught me that I never knew was that sweet potatoes, if allowed to trellis, will produce seeds.  Those seeds can then be planted.

Planting heirloom sweet potatoes

I covered the sweet potatoes with moist soil and will watch them very closely.  If we can get these growing, we'll now have heirloom sweet potatoes in the garden.  While we enjoy eating the ones that grow every year in the garden, it will be nice to have a new variety, especially if they are as good as Russ says they are.  I'll post on the progress, if we can get them to grow.

Grow, Sweet Potatoes, Grow!

While I really enjoy saving seeds from open pollinated plants, growing sweet potatoes and saving their seed will be a new experience for me.  I'm interested in learning all about it.  Oh, I'm also interested in eating sweet potatoes that naturally taste like they have cinnamon, brown sugar and honey added.