Howdy friends! In spring 2017, we planted two separate sets of sweet potatoes. The main 4X8 bed was planted in loose, sandy loam, infused with straw and mulch.
We planted another group in containers with store bought potting soil - nothing else...
...Here are the results. The watering schedule was the same for both. As you can see, the LONG TERM quality of the potatoes was vastly different.
We're going to follow the path of the same two potatoes, over several months, following harvest. Which one would YOU pick for the dinner table?
We observed that the dark potting soil held water, and was wet when we harvested the containers. The sandy loam drained much better. We also observed pillbugs in the dark soil, whereas the sandy loam had no insects.
Sandy loam harvest, good production of 46 pounds...
Potting soil container harvest...looking good! Gotta big potato there...
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and where do you store them?
Wow! What a difference! Were you expecting those results?
Your pictures are great quality! But just as a side note, they may need to be reduced/compressed. It took a long time to see the images and one didn't load. From what I can tell (I'm not an expert though) it seems like they're too large (>1mb if I'm looking at them correctly).
I use my photos from Google photos, which automatically compresses them. You shouldn't lose your quality if you do this (http://www.huffingtonpost.in/arpit-verma/bursting-the-myth-of-comp_b_8902076.html)
Thank you for your comments @helenoftroy !!! Actually I was shocked, I expected the container potatoes to be even more vibrant, because the vines were so healthy. We poached the vines from the containers to plant our beds, so yes, the resulting potatoes below where horrifying LOL.
Thanks for the advice on the pictures....I'll check it out and see about reducing the size so it loads well for everybody. :D
What a great experiment then ... I imagine you'll continue using sandy looms ;) It's funny because every time I go to the store and see little shriveled sweet potatoes I wonder if they grew them in dark soil LOL
I really enjoy sweet potatoes but our growing season isn't long enough for us to have them in the garden. I am hoping once we have a greenhouse we can extend our growing season long enough to grow our own.
Thank you for documenting your results and sharing them with us. I am always nervous to make "mistakes" while gardening. I guess a better perspective would be to look at gardening as an experiment and just have fun exploring and learning. -Aimee
Thanks for your comments Aimee! Yes gardening for me has been a bit of trial and error, so many things that can go wrong in my climate especially drought and pests.
Just have to dive in and go for it I suppose. Good luck to you when you get your greenhouse...looking forward to posts showing your progress!! -Joe