Sweet Potato Harvest - Evangeline vs. Beauregard

[seab3196]

Those are really nice potatoes. I'm going to grow some of the Evangeline
next year. It's one of the latest releases and it's getting rave reviews on taste.
I've been growing Covington for the last three years and they are a great producer. I'm reading that Covington is the main variety grown by the big growers. Beauregard was the main one. I'm also going to grow Garnet, same as Red Garnet and Diane. I got to eat some this year. They have dark dark orange meat and smooth and real sweet "Delicious". The picture of the Evangeline had a lot of small ones. Do you think if you had given them a couple more weeks a lot of those would have been bigger??

I'm attaching a couple of picture, I got 4000 lbs of this patch, for my neighborhood vegetable stand. Irrigation and 90+ degrees for 90 days this summer really made them produce. I'm in mid Georgia.

a picture of all the potatoes on one Covington plant.

and a picture of the potato patch a couple of weeks before I dug them

[kath]

Thanks, and welcome to T'ville! Your Covington sweet potatoes are gorgeous- I've never grown that variety. I'm sure that with a longer, hotter season those tubers would have fattened up for me, but I put them in as early as it warms up enough and kept them in until fall. Some of them were extremely long but many were quite gnarled and curvy, too. I won't be trying them again- maybe I'm just too far north for them to perform at their best. My brother lives in Covington, GA but doesn't garden. Hope those Evangelines do well for you. Please post your pics!

[seab3196]

Hi Kathy: Thanks for the welcome and thanks for taking the time to replay..
I'm 22 miles east of Covington. You're right it could be the cooler climate that made the Evangiline grow like that. What research I've done on them indicates they grow more like your Beauregard. So since they were developed in Louisiana it might take a hot climate to make them grow fater.
Check out the Garnet,, also called (Red Garnet or Diane) I got some from the Organic section at my grocery store and they are the best sweet potato I ever ate. I went back and bought all the small ones for seed potatoes next year in case I can't order any slips. It's been around for a long time. Their shape is about like Beauregard. They have a very high rating on several taste test,, above Covington and Beauregard. But the Evangeline does also. They have a neet deep wine color skin and dark orange flesh.
Some time hard ground will make potatoes grow long and slinder. But your Beauregard did fine so unless you had a hard section of the garden that wasn't the case.
thanks again.
Here are a few potato patch pictures, It was so pretty I hated to dig it up.
And a picture of the Garnet
Thanks

[kath]

Thanks for the tip, seab- that's a really nice looking sweet potato. I'll keep an eye out for it in the health food stores/organic sections and give it a trial run.

Your patch was sure pretty- and big! The Evangeline vines were especially pretty to me- perky and purpley. I grew them in loose, hilled up soil that I covered with black permeable row cover to increase the heat of the soil a bit and control weeds and the Evangeline grew in the same rows with Beauregard. The main difficulty I had with every other sweet potato that I tried before Beauregard was that the tubers all had sunken dark spots on them that increased in size during storage- like a dry rot of some kind. Beauregard has never had that and produced lots of big tubers so we stuck with it. I would like to find a variety that was a more reasonable size though...maybe Red Garnet/Diane will work for us.

[Medbury Gardens]

Welcome to the forum seab3196.
Impressive patch you grew which certainly look nice and healthy,did you find the tubers that were grown closer to the pines smaller than what came out of the main area.??

[seab3196]

Hi Medbury Thanks for the welcome. The tubers next to the pines grew just as well or better as the tubers on the other side of the patch.. Here is the remedy for that. Trees feed roots grow within the the top 18 inches of the ground. I use a subsoil plow and plow around the edge of the field and garden, down to about 28 inches deep. That cuts all the nuetriant sucking roots from the tree. You need a tractor to do that,, 30 or 40 hp or up is good. If that's not an option then rent a walk behind ditching machine and just cut a ditch where the trees are close to your growing area. They are about $75 a day here. I cut the roots at lest ever two years,, I do it every year most of the time.
It's so hot here the pines gave shade for about half the day and made it a little cooler
and the first couple of rows next to them actually grew larger on the average.
My main garden has huge trees around three sides. I've been keeping the tree roots cut for 30 years, and grow some of the best vegies right up to the cut root line. The tree roots grow back but it takes them a couple of years or more to get back to draining the nuetrients from the soil. If you are concerned about damaging the trees. I have not notice any slack in their growth, they seam to make up for the lost feed roots on the other side of the tree. I'm sure a lot of gardeners loose good growing areas due to trees.
If that's the case then this is the solution.
thanks Medbury

[Medbury Gardens]

That's really interesting how you control the roots and also by cutting them off like that there's then a heap of root matter rooting down improving your humus levels.

I also have trees around my garden area,though still small at this stage but a root ripping at some later stage would be a great idea,lucky for me that i have a dairy farm next door who have the mother all tractors and a sub surface ripper that penetrates down to about meter

[seab3196]

Thanks Medbury. I hope the info will be of some use to you later on. You probably already know this, but just in case. The feed roots extend out as far as the limbs of the tree extend and maybe further, depending on the type tree. I hadn't thought about the decaying root mater being a plus for the soil.
Oh how I'd love to visit New Zeland. It' such a beautiful land. New Zeland and Alaska are on my wish list to visit before I leave this world.

[Medbury Gardens]

You would be more than welcome when you do ending up down this way like wise i want to get to the US/Canada at some stage to have a good look around,thanks to TV,there's lots of folk i'd love to visit/meet.

The roots can go much further than that because at one stage i had a pine hedge between the house area and garden,the hedge was 5meters from the garden but was digging up roots 2x as far again.ended up cutting down that hedge and replanting with New Zealand native trees which hopefully shouldn't be as invasive

[wmontanez]

NZ is also in my list to visit. I even contemplated applying for a visa, accordingto the point system there I would be invited to get a resident/work visa it seems. Would be my gardening paradise . I have been fortunate to be able to travel to many countries and when visiting the country side i find its people no matter where in the world you are tend to be so similar. Always welcoming.

[seab3196]

Originally Posted by wmontanez

NZ is also in my list to visit. I even contemplated applying for a visa, accordingto the point system there I would be invited to get a resident/work visa it seems. Would be my gardening paradise . I have been fortunate to be able to travel to many countries and when visiting the country side i find its people no matter where in the world you are tend to be so similar. Always welcoming.

You are so right Wendy.. I don't know how to explain it, but people that create part, or all their food from the soil are just ,,diffrent,, wherever they might be in the world. Diffrent in a good way.. Anyone that is a gardner or farmer that meats a total stranger and discovers that they are also a gardner or farmen are instantly no longer strangers. becaues they have kendred minds.
___________
Charlie

[Medbury Gardens]

You talk my language Charlie,ive often thought the same that people who are food gardeners are generally honest and decent,certainly cant remember meeting any who weren't.

[seab3196]

There is an extention to this line of thought. People, for what ever reason, don't grow their own vegies but seek them out from the small farmers and gardners that do are also of the same mind. Here is some proof. I grow thousands of pounds of vegetables of all kinds every year. I have a road side stand that is an Honor System, self service. Customers stop, get what they want and put the money in an "open" box. They make their own change if they need to. I have had no money stolen in all the years I've been doing it. I've had about 5$ worth of produce. that wasn't paid for and I think they were probably talking on their cell phone and just forgot. If they were a thief they would have taken the money, not the vegies.
________
charlie

[wmontanez]

I like that Honor System idea. I wonder if i works for seedlings too. I agree with both of you. People that does not garden but value and appreciate small scale farmers are going to be honest. Probably they grew around or knew a food gardener or farmer before and understand the generosity etc.

I think the way we make a connection to the earth and the cycle of life is what make gardeners around the world be so similar. I've been to very poor countries and every time you are invited to a countryside house for whatever reason they want to give you food even thou they might only have little to share.

One example is that when visiting Tibet we got invited into a tent/house and the family mother made tea for us also she had bananas and insisted that I had one . I am sure they don't grow bananas so they probably was a special treat because the 6 year old grandaughter opened here eyes with excitement. But declining is an offense to them so I had one show my most sincere respect and accept one which I shared with the grandaughter claiming that was so big and delicious that she had to help me

[Medbury Gardens]

Yes and its so often the ones with less are the most generous