I got so curious about all this that I did some google searches myself and read several articles that suggest just what @zendog and @MikeC said they read. So I completely understand why you might want to try and cure sweet potatoes in hot, humid places. I sure don’t want to put myself up against those articles, but I sure don’t get it…AT ALL. I can accept that curing might make them a little sweeter based on the science involved (converting starch to sugar) but even that claim is suspicious to me. One article in Mother Earth magazine says “If you taste an uncured sweet potato you will be very disappointed as they will taste very starchy and not at all sweet”. Well, I know 100% that just isn’t true. Perhaps a brix meter would show them to be a little less sweet until cured, but I’ve never been able to taste the difference. I urge you, zendog, to test this yourself. Toss one of your small ones in the oven now and do it again in a couple weeks and decide for yourself. And also whether you think the one you do now taste “really starchy and not at all sweet”. I say BS!!! And while I tend to think all these articles can’t be wrong and that perhaps a hot (85 degree) and humid environment will cure sweet potatoes well, I can absolutely 100% tell you after 30 years of doing it by putting them in a spare room at around 70 degrees and spread out on paper and well ventilated will also cure them so well that they will last a year or more.
Anyway, the whole thing has left me a bit bewildered. but since I know my way worked for 3 generations of my family including almost perfectly for me for 30 years, I am not changing. Good luck! Sorry if I added to your confusion by challenging what you’ve read. But if you’ve got sprouts and I don’t, I tend to think my system is better (hope that doesn’t sound egotistical!) Good luck. Let us know if you do any testing.
So I ate one of the sprouters last night and it was great. Maybe not as sweet, but I couldn’t really say for sure either way. And, as you said, definitely more tender. I was in a rush to get it cooked, so cut it in quarters and did notice a little white “sap” on the cuts sides, like what I saw when cutting the vines off as well, but I didn’t notice any off tastes. Nothing like what that Mother Earth magazine suggests.
I remember in your earlier posts you leave your vines until frost, so maybe that helps make sure the sugars are a bit more mature. I also waited until a few cold nights and they have been sitting a while as well. Next year maybe I’ll yank one out in late August and cook it up to see how it tastes as an experiment.
I’m glad to hear I don’t need to find a place to get them up to 85 degrees just to get good flavor!
Once again, we concur. I’m glad you also thought Mother Earth is wrong about uncured ones tasting “Very Starchy and not at all sweet”. And yes, uncured ones absolutely do ooze that white mily substance you saw, but I’m just like you- never noticed it having a bad taste at all. As we both already said, the idea of trying to build an entire “curing room” with 85 degrees and high moisture just sounds ridiculous to me, and since my Sweet Potatoes cure up and keep quite well by just being spread out and dried at room temp, I am not building such a room ! ha.
BTW, keep us posted on whether your potatoes end up making it or not. (meaning whether they cure up well enough to store for the next few months). My fear is that because you started off with them in bags that the damage may already be done. They could end up rotting now no matter what you do (of course we hope not). Should that happen, please don’t take it as a sign that you should have put them in a humid 85 degree room… it won’t prove that since they were in towel coered bags at first.
BTW, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if a lot of those articles we are seeing are just other people reading about this “hot room” technique and then writing about it without actually doing it. We have all seen cases in the fruit tree world where people write about techniques/processes that absolutely will not work/are not possible. Not all internet authors are as experienced as they would have us believe! It hasn’t been long since I read a whole article about how if you wanted an apple crisp tree for yourself you should go buy an apple crisp apple at the store and take out the seeds. It then went on a long time explaining how to sprout the seeds, transfer them to pots, and eventually plant them out side and how to do all this properly. Never a word about grafting or about the seed not being true. That one article just sort of proved how much bad information is out there and being presented as absolute fact from people who profess to know all about it. Sad.
This may qualify as the stupid question of the day - inquiring minds want to know is Bailey Hardy Peach Tree the same Peach as Bailey Rootstock. In other words if I grow Baily Rootstock will I get a Bailey Hardy Peach Tree? Anyone actually grow the Bailey Hardy Peach Tree?
Grandpas Orchards sells Bailey rootstock. i asked them about being the same as Bailey Hardy and they said no, the two are not the same. I have Siberian C planted but have not gotten peaches yet.
The guy at Beyond Vineyard & Winery in Wisconsin sold me some Siberian C pits last spring. He likes them for their fruit that survives and produces when other peaches don’t. You can see some of his pictures on Facebook - they look fairly small, and from what he said they mature in September. Too late for my season, but I’m interested in trialling them as rootstock.
I planted a Siberian C. It froze the first winter, but then a sprout came up again. It is still just a little 18" whip. After the -32F in that orchard last week, I don’t know if there will be anything alive again come spring, but I’ll keep caring for it as long as it keeps struggling.
If over time due to settling, the graft union gets buried and is now under the soil level, will I loose the benefit of the rootstock since the grafted variety is now rooting?
