MASSIVE SWEET POTATO HARVEST | HOW I WENT FROM 30 LBS. TO 200 LBS!

This is my biggest sweet potato harvest ever! In this video, I show you how I grew almost 200 lbs of sweet potatoes in 3 raised beds that are 4×8.

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Start date: 10/17/2025 00:01 PDT
End date: 11/5/202523:59 PDT

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Hey friends, welcome or welcome back to my channel. Y’all, you picked an exciting day to join me in the garden because this is the day we’ve been waiting for all summer. Today, we’re going to harvest our sweet potatoes. It is always a fun day when we harvest sweet potatoes because we don’t know what we’re going to get. But y’all, we’re going to harvest in faith. And so, if you’re brand new here, my name is Barbara. I live in Tennessee um and we live um in zone 7B. If this is your first time here, we have three main gardening spaces. But for today, we’re going to be in the back of my house where my garden first started. I have five raised beds back here. And I have three beds full of sweet potatoes. Now, before we get into um pulling the sweet potatoes, let me give you a little background and a little context when it comes to sweet potatoes. And then we’re going to get into the harvest. Um what you see behind me is my husband. He is like going ahead to start um cutting and clipping some of the vines. Y’all, the vines have grown so wild. They’re all in the aisle way. Like, you can’t tell where one bed ends and the other one begins. And so, just to kind of keep it from being a huge safety hazard and so that we’re not tripping and getting caught in vines. Ask me how I know because your girl has done it. So, he’s doing that while I’m setting up this video and then we’re going to start pulling the sweet potatoes. Now, I’ve been doing sweet potatoes for the last four years, and it took me a couple of years to kind of dial in to get a better harvest than I got the first two years. Um, and I’ve always done just one raised bed of sweet potatoes. The first two years I did them inside of my tunnel. Um, and that worked pretty well. Last year, for the first time, I did sweet potatoes back here in my backyard. And then I’ve decided, okay, I like that. Let me do it again. The difference this year is that I did three beds instead of one. And you may say, “Well, why did you do three instead of one?” Well, to be real frank and real honest with you, cuz the Holy Spirit told me to. That’s really what happened. Um, the Holy Spirit told me to triple my production of sweet potatoes. And another reason is it made sense because in cuz it made sense because the Holy Spirit is always right. But number two, we eat a lot of sweet potatoes. And I find myself that the one bed was not enough to last us past 3 or 4 months because once we make sweet potato pies for Thanksgiving and once we do some big old um things of sweet potatoes for the holidays, then we only have a few potatoes left and they’re gone by like January and I have to buy sweet potatoes from the store. But we absolutely love sweet potatoes. So it did make sense for us to grow more. But I had never really allocated the space for sweet potatoes like I did this time. So the Lord told me literally at the beginning of the year to um do three beds of sweet potatoes and so I aim to be obedient in this regard. So that’s what we did. Um and so I am expecting a great harvest. Um now one of the things that I want to talk to you about sweet potatoes is that let’s talk about variety. So for the past three years I’ve only grown not that’s not true. I have mostly grown the bow regard and it has worked really really well for me every single time. Um, one year I experienced it I experimented with Georgia Jet and it’s more of a slender potato and very thin and I was not a big fan of the taste but regard I like the taste of it. It grows really well for me in my area and so that’s one that I will just you know tried and true. But this year I kind of stuck my feet um in the deep water and we planted three new varieties along with the Bogard. So we planted Bayubel for the first time. We also planted one called Cariggo which is from Baker’s Creek. Um and then we planted Evangelon. Um and then also the Bogard. So we have four different kinds of potatoes that we’re going to harvest today. And it’s going to be interesting to see what the yield is and how it differs um from each one. And also as we go throughout the year, what it looks like on the inside, the taste, and all of that good stuff. So, we’re going to harvest our potatoes. And then also at the end of the video or towards the end, I’m going to talk to you about what do we do now that we have all of these vines and we have all these sweet potatoes. What are we going to do with the sweet potatoes and talk to you about how to cure your sweet potatoes. So, this is going to be an allencompassing um video when it comes to growing, harvesting, and curing your sweet potatoes. Now, another thing that I’ve learned over the years, um the first two years I did sweet potatoes, I I would say that I received a small yield. Now, for the one raised bed, it was average. But the potatoes, I would say I probably if I had, let’s say, 50 potatoes, I would say maybe 20% 20% of them were a nice size that you would like find in the grocery store. The rest were a lot of small ones. And I kept thinking, okay, how do I get the bigger sweet potatoes? And one of the things I learned is that I was pulling my sweet potatoes too early. Sweet potatoes take 100 to 110 days to grow. I was pulling my sweet potatoes in like 80 and 90 days. So, I was literally losing 20 to 30 days that I could have kept them in the ground and they were not big. I started um leaving them in the ground longer last year for the first time. So, remember last year for the first time I had them out here in the backyard and then I also um let them stay about 100 days and my sweet potatoes were much bigger. I will pop the video of last year’s harvest right up here. And then also I will also link the very first year that I did sweet potatoes and link that video as well so you can see the difference. Um and so definitely if you’ve been struggling with sweet potatoes with them being small and not growing well, then definitely check how long you have them in the ground and make sure that you’re counting 100 to 110 days for most varieties to actually harvest them. Now, they have to be harvested before the first frost. In our area, the first frost is supposed to be um next week. Right now, that’s not what the forecast is saying, so we will see. But these potatoes have been in here about 120 days um on the high end. Some are right at 10 and then some are like 120. So, they definitely should be ready to come out of the ground. They have done their time. Um and it’s time to pull them. Now, I did two tests. I did a test two weeks ago and just um pulled tried to get one sweet potato out of the ground to see like what we looking like, like give me some um some clues about what we working with. So, a couple of weeks ago, I pulled a sweet potato to try to see what I was working with. And y’all, my heart sank because I pulled one from the edge. And y’all, when I tell you it was like a little it was so thin, it was as thin as a pencil. And my heart just sank. I could not believe it. And I’m like, how is that even possible? Because two weeks ago, they were like right at 100 days. I’m like, how is that possible that there are no potatoes? And so I started panicking. I’m like, what if there are no potatoes in the ground? What if there are no potatoes in the ground? I prayed about it. I’m like, Lord, that there has to be potatoes in the ground. Like, what in the world? So then last week, I came out here and I pulled another one beside where I pulled before. And y’all, that thing was big. It’s already in the garage current. It was a nice size. So, you know how you give your first fruits? That was the first fruit. So, I’m expecting great things under all these vines. That is what I’m expecting. So, we bought some crates out here. I cannot wait to see how much we yield. Um, the other thing that I will say when it comes to sweet potatoes that a lot of people make a mistake on is that they plant them too close. I was guilty of that the first two years. So, not only was I harvesting them too soon, I was planting them too close together because I was trying to get as many slips as I could. I was doing like 18 to 20 slips in one 4 by8 bed. And ideally, you want 18 to 24 inches between your sweet potato slips within the row. And then um across rows, you want a couple of feet. Well, now I do about 12 to 15 slips per bed for the most part. And so that has made a difference as well. So again, if you struggled with your sweet potatoes this summer, make sure that one, you have a good variety that grows in your area. Number two, make sure that you are letting them harvest the full time or let them get to maturity the full time. And then also make sure that you’re not planting them too close together. Try those tips if it didn’t work out for you this summer and see if it makes a difference on next summer. Now, for all of you who wondering and when you see this harvest and your lips start licking about some sweet potatoes, you too late. Don’t try to go put some sweet potatoes in the ground now. I had somebody ask me two weeks ago, I bought some sweet potato slips. Can I go ahead and put them in the ground? Ma’am, no. You cannot. Sweet potatoes are a summer crop, okay? They like heat. Now, unless you’re in the Jamaicas, the Bermuda, whatever you wherever that is, unless you’re in a hot climate, then no, you cannot grow sweet potatoes in the winter. So, if you in Tennessee, you going to have to wait till next summer. Okay. So, are we ready, y’all? Are we ready to harvest these sweet potatoes? I think we are. Ready or not, we about to get it. Okay. So, let’s go over to the first bed. Okay, so you can see my husband has kind of moved down. You can see all of the um sweet potato vines right in here, y’all. Look at all these vines. I’m just now being able to see my walkway. Now, a lot of people say, and it’s true, you can eat the sweet potato vine leaves. I never have, and I don’t really intend to just because I have no interest in doing that. Not to say that you can’t, and if you do, go forth and conquer. But getting all these vines, trying to clean them, and then cook them to see if I like them, I’m just not interested. I’m just going to compost them. That’s what I’m going to do. But if you want to eat yours, go forth and power. Okay? Go forth and power. But for me, it ain’t remotely on my to-do list. And I’m like, how y’all be cooking them? Like, what y’all do? Sauté them in butter or something? What y’all do? Let me know. I mean, I’m not real interested, but I guess I am interested. A lot of vines, honey. Lot of vines. So, y’all, did you know, um, it’s a lot of vines? That means there should be some sweet potatoes under here, right? There should be some sweet potatoes. So, he’s kind of cutting away the vines so I can get in here, or so that we can get in here, I should say, and make sure I don’t hurt myself cuz I see a a stick. put that down there. And we probably need some type of triel or something to get under. So, what you want to do is you want to make sure that you can kind of get under where the potatoes are so that you don’t damage the skin because the skin accident. You pull one by accident. Okay, come on. Let’s show us. Y’all, look at that. Look at this. I don’t even know if you can tell. It’s the size of my hand. It is huge. Absolutely huge. Now, you can see, you see how it’s still moist? Mhm. Y’all, okay. So, it it rained 5 days ago, and I thought I had let it dry out enough. So, that’s the reason I didn’t pull them last week because when I got ready to pull them, it rained the very next day. Um, and ideally, you really want your potatoes to be dry because we’re not going to wet this when it comes to the curing process. I’ll talk about that towards the end of the video. Um, but I turned the water off on all the sweet potato vines um about two weeks ago so they could stop getting water because I wanted them to dry out. Then it rained, like I said, 5 days ago. I thought they would be dry by now, but I see the soil is still very moist. You can tell now. I’m going to just kind of like brush it away as much as I can, but Okay. And where’d you get that one, honey? On that right down here at the end. Right here. Right in the middle. Yeah. So this bed is um Bayou Bale on the left and then it’s Cargo on the right. So since he got it in the middle, there’s probably if I had to guess, that’s Bayou Bale if I had to guess. Um but let’s go ahead and just dive in and let’s see what we get. I went and grabbed I went to go grab the one that I pulled last week as as my second test. This is how big it was. So again, I’m expecting great things. So let’s get to it. I found a tri You want to start down there where you are or man everyone bed is full. I’m going to let you dig. to try to get down below so that we’re not nicking the potato. Get a big sucker. This first one is taking us a minute to get out. We can tell that it’s big, but it’s on down in there. We’re trying not to break it. The ground is kind of hard. It’s still It’s not wet, but it’s damp. Yeah. Moist. It is like the length of the tri. Yeah. I’m saying it’s all down in there. And I have one right here that I’m trying to get, man. It’s on down in there, too. Okay. I was able to get one that’s like a odd shape, but it’ll still eat. Oh, you got it, y’all. Look at that. It is the length of my head. That is a big one. So what he’s getting right now are the bayou um the bayou bails. And then this one was the carrot came from the cargo side. So cargo is one that Becca crease does. It is really expensive for sweet potato slips. You get five slips for $17, but it’s supposed to be one of the best tasting the most one of the most taste best tasting very prolific sweet potato. We’re going to see. Here’s the thing. I mean, supposed to rain again in like 3 or 4 days. So, I don’t know that I even if I waited 3 or 4 days, it may get a little bit more dry. But, of course, because the sun is not baking in the middle of the day, it’s probably taking longer for it to dry out. Okay, y’all. We switching to a shovel. They’re like joined together. Where’s this nip? Huge. All right. So, I’m trying to like get the dirt off as just brush it off as we go. You don’t want to water it because it’s going to mess with the curing process. The curing process is what dries them out, which is what you want them dry so that you can um store them long term. So, right now we have six and we just in this one little section right here. I’d rather dig it out with a tri once I know I know where the boundaries are. Okay. Okay, y’all. So, we’re It’s not going as quick just because it’s compacted quite a bit. That broke. Man, that’s huge. This is huge. This is almost a sign. When I say too big, it’ll be fine. But they don’t even have to be this big for you to And see that one got me too a little bit. Yeah, we got to be real careful cuz we can’t have a basket of ones we can’t use. But look at how big this is. Huge. Oh, that’s a nice one. Mhm. Wow. So y’all, this is not going as fast because for whatever reason, it’s very compact and it could be because it’s damp down here. But we’re trying to take great precaution to not nick them or scrape them as we’re trying to get to them, but they are down in here. They’re not like just right on the surface, so to speak. So, we’ve kind of done this little section right here. So, the front part and now we’re getting over here to the other side of the front part. So, where he is now is the cargo because it’s on that side. But you can see we haven’t even we still haven’t done even all of that. We’re just in this first section and this is how many potatoes we have so far. So, looking very very good. good. They all look good. They’re all a pretty big size. So, so far we’re doing great. We have like three or four all connected together. Wow. Okay, bring it closer, y’all. These things are huge. This is the cargo. This is four. This is This has to be like a pound. Yeah, at least. That’s a one pound potato. We’re not even halfway through the bed. Not even halfway. So, we’re going back and forth. I’m like on this side. He’s on that side. I’m getting the ones that I can. But my my Oh, here’s another one that was connected. So far, they’re all a very good size. Yep. Okay, y’all. With time, we’ve gotten smarter. So, we’re pulling out a tool that I was saving to use in another upcoming video, but you going to see it now and you going to see it again in in the and maybe not the next video, but in an upcoming video. So, I want to thank the sponsor who sent me this handy tool. It’s by Stacy. I’ll put the name up here, but this is an electric handheld battery operated pruner. Right. Yeah. My husband said it works fantastic. Fantastic. Tell me about it. I mean, you can cut this with your hand, but you can cut it way faster with this and it just pulls the trigger and the cutters just take care of business. I mean, we’re moving through the bed like double time. He said you don’t even feel the vine. So, we were doing it the hard way. Um, this is making it a lot easier. And so, when it comes to pruners, obviously you have the manual pruners, but this goes much, much faster. We were going to use this to also prune um fruit trees and other bushes and stuff on the property. Um, so I really want to thank them. Y’all, if you go to the description um box, there will be a link to get this product at a discount. Get it for um yourself, get it for your husband, get it for your significant other. But definitely, you want to get one of these because this is going to make it, when I say lightweight. We are now speeding through. So, we have done 25% of the bed the hard way, and now we’re going to finish the rest of the bed the easy way with this electric battery operated cordless pruner that is very, very powerful. Um, it came in the box. All we had to, it was already charged when it got here, but we put it on the charger just a little while longer. It was ready to go out of the box. How easy is that? So, definitely check the description box and get the discount code and the link to go and get you one of these. Now, let’s see how much many how many more sweet potatoes we can do. And we’ve already determined, y’all, that out of these three beds, we are not going to make it through all three beds. We’re going to have to do this finish it up on another day because the sun is going to catch us. We um dedicated an hour to do this. silly us because I think we might finish this bed and then we’re gonna have to come back a different day to do the other two beds just because it’s going to be too dark and it won’t be great for video. But let’s see if we can get the rest of this bed done and see how many potatoes we get and also how much they weigh. I cannot express enough how much my husband loves this tool. And it was just great to see it in action. I mean, it made things so easy. He said it was lightweight. You can barely feel it, but it just literally just prunes and snips the sweet potato vines like in seconds. It’s so much easier than using a manual pruner or us using those um small clips. Um so, this is a great tool, especially with the holidays coming up. It may um be a great gift for your husband. Um it may be a great gift for you. But go ahead and click the link in my description box and grab you one of these. I don’t think you will regret it. It is awesome. And they’re like all in clusters. Mhm. Nightfall is coming. Some of these are giving us a workout. Like it is hard to get it out of the ground cuz it is so far down in there. And I’m not sure why my soil is um so compacted in certain areas. I’m not going to complain because I still have a ton of potatoes, but I don’t remember the soil being this compacted before. It’s usually pretty loose, especially when it’s dry. So, let me show you before we lose um daylight how much we have so far. So, there’s a basket, but I got more to put in here. I need a place to lay these out. Y’all can see this yellow crate is full. And we probably done half the bed. Wouldn’t you say, B? Yeah, approximately. Maybe maybe half. 40%. Potentially. Wow. I’m not going to even attempt to pick this up, but I will take you off the tripod and let me see if I can get you a closer shot so you can see they’re all for the most part a great size. No issues. You can see how big I have to show you. Let me show you an empty basket so you can see how big the basket is that we’re working with. Pretty deep. That’s how deep the basket is. Very sturdy, which comes in handy. Um, and you can see how big it is. Right now, we pretty much have the whole thing full and we’re only 40% in the bed. I think I have four of these yellow crates. I can assure you that’s not going to be enough. That’s not going to be enough if one already is full from half. Okay, y’all. I know it’s hard to see because it’s getting dark. Um, we have more than my husband’s uncovering this one little area. He’s going to try to get it before it gets too dark. But y’all, we’ll bring you back tomorrow or the next day when we harvest the rest of this bed and the other two beds. It’s definitely going to be a multiple day process. Um, but we’re going to take you along the journey for all of it. So, definitely stay tuned. We are going to take this into the garage and weigh it and see kind of where we where we are and I’ll let you know when I come back the next day. Okay, friends. I’m back. It’s the next day, y’all. We took the potatoes in last night to weigh them. You know, we only did half of the bed. And y’all, it was 46.6 pounds. Half of that bed was 46.6 lb. Unbelievable. So, I’m like, this may be a 100 pound bed. So, um, my husband came out here earlier today. I was working, so I wasn’t able to come out here and join him. I came out here for just like a few minutes. Um, so let me show you the footage that I got for a few minutes while he was pulling the potatoes. And you’ll see some of the other big ones that we got while he was pulling them. And we still had issues with the compaction and all that good stuff. But take a y’all look at this. Unbelievable. These things are huge. Absolutely huge. Wow. Yeah. Separator. Unbelievable. Okay, so now the bed is tore up. Like it is empty. Absolutely empty. So we think we got everything. At least he says he he feels like he got everything. I may go behind and just make sure that there’s nothing left in here because usually every year without fail um we’re put planting something else in the bed and then we find a sweet potato. Um that happens every single year. So hopefully we got them all. But usually what whatever we find it may be one or two small potatoes. It’s not anything um usually major. So hopefully he got it all. But y’all I cannot wait to see what the rest of the potatoes weigh. Let me show you how much he got when he cleared this bed. Okay, y’all. That’s it right there. I don’t know if I can lift it to get it to the pavement to weigh it. And my husband is out here cutting the grass, so we may have to get a total later. But I tried to lift it up. It has to be 50 lbs. It or at least very very close like the last one. But as you can see, it is full to the top. absolutely full. So, as a reminder, that bed, half of it was Bayou Bale and the other half was the cargo from Baker Creek. Now, I’ll tell you, they look pretty much the same in terms of color. But what I noticed is that the Bayou Bale were fatter and rounder versus the cargo was more slender and long in terms of shape. So, I’m thinking that’s how I’ll be able to tell them apart because right now they’re all mixed in and it really I mean I guess it matters. I don’t know if it matters. And I would say the yield was about the same. Now, I was only out here for the first half and so I don’t know that my husband kind of kept record of where he was pulling and and all that and the sides and all that. So, I can’t 100% say, but when I was out here yesterday and we did half of the bed, I would say the yield was probably about the same in terms of number of potatoes. But if I had to give a leg up to one of them, it would be Bayou Bell. That one might have had more, but they were definitely bigger than the Cargo. So, I don’t know if we’ll be able to tell the difference in taste cuz again, because they’re all mixed up and I didn’t keep them separate. Um, I don’t know if we’ll be able to tell the difference or not. Uh, but I may or may not do Cargo unless I can definitely tell the difference. Um, but I definitely didn’t tell a difference in terms of yield. It probably was the same if not less than the Bayou bail. So I can just do the Bayou Bell bail which was cheaper than five slips at Well, you know what? Let me think about that because I only had five slips. So let me think about that. With the Bayou Bale, I think I had 10 slips and so if the yield was the same, then that would mean that the Cargo actually yielded more with less slips. That’s what that would mean, right? Yeah, that’s exactly what that would mean. I just remembered that with the with the cargo, it was only five slips and they were $17. I got 10 slips from Bayou for Bayou Bale. And where I got my sweet potato slips this year, they’re all organic. Um, and that’s another thing. I did not do that in the first couple years. I was not buying organic slips because I don’t know, I just didn’t know any better. Didn’t think about it. I was getting sweet potato slips from like Home Depot. Um, and they were the Bog Guard and I still had great um, you know, average success. But I’ve started buying organic potato slips now. And these all came from Wood Prairie if I’m not mistaken. I will double check and if it’s different, I’ll put it up here. But I think they all came from Wood Prairie. Um, and I think I had 10 slips each of the Bayou Bell, the Evangelon, and the Borard. I’m pretty sure that’s what we had. So if that’s the case, then the Cargo might have yielded more because it was five slips versus 10. I don’t know. Well, I cannot wait to see how much that weighs. But now we have another bed. I’m tell you right now, this video is going to span some days because literally y’all, I’ve been out in the other gardens taking care of some of that stuff. Um, and shooting double content. So, I only have like 15 or 20 minutes. But, let’s at least start the second bed and let’s see if we can find anything. And I don’t know if we can do it without our husband. Without our husband, without my husband. Let’s see. And I wonder if that soil in the second bed is as compacted as this one. I’m not quite sure why this was I’ve never seen that before. It’s very very compacted, but it clearly didn’t bother the the potatoes. So, I’m not going to worry too much about it. But let’s go to the second bed. I’m pretty sure the second bed is all borard. I’m almost positive. Listen y’all, I can’t even begin to express this week as I was harvest harvesting these potatoes the days that it spanned. This is probably one of the most exciting videos of the year and I’m going to tell you right now, make sure that you stay until the very end, dude. This is not the one to be skipping out on. Stick with me. Stay with me. So, anyway, I’m moving on to the second bed, which is the bow regard. I don’t have my husband out here with his handy little tool to cut my vines. Um, but let’s see if we can manage to get anything by ourselves. Let’s just see. I’m just starting in the corner. These vines are so thick and so plentiful. I see a potato stem. I’m moving back some of the mulch and all of that. Okay, there’s one. It’s on the smaller side, but for whatever reason, the first one that I pour from the other one right here at the corner was on the smaller side, too. This soil, at least in the area where I am, is not as compacted. I should have brought some other pruners down here. I don’t want to use the um other electric pruner because y’all, I’m not that handy. I don’t want to be me messing with no power tools and not know what I’m doing. I think you just press a button, but still This is a big one. Oh, there’s two or three right there together. Oh, yeah. I see big ones. Two or three right here together. Okay, that’s a small one. Oh man. is compacted right around the base of the potato. Let’s see. Let’s put that there. And I need to stay focused because I moved to this middle. I don’t I wonder if there was anything else in the corner. Maybe not. But let me focus on this is huge, y’all. Oh. Oh my goodness. Oh, y’all. This is probably two pounds, y’all. Do you see this? This is longer or bigger than my head. This is huge. Oh my goodness. There’s another one, y’all. I have never grown sweet potatoes this big. My husband is coming over here now. He is about to jump off this lawnmower. He sees me holding these potatoes. He’s like, “No, no, no, no.” But I thought you talking to the camera. Well, I am. Okay. This thing is bigger than my head. Bigger than my head. Come on, baby. Wow. That’s at least two lbs. That’s at least two pounds. At least move, Lexi. There’s another one that was right beside it. Okay, y’all. Commercial break. My husband came out here. He’s going to weigh this for us. This is from the first bed. Okay. Go ahead, honey. And you just tell me the number. Okay. 42.2. Wow. Okay. So, almost. Okay, y’all. So, in that one bed, that’s 88.8 lbs of sweet potatoes. 46.6 42.2. So, we didn’t quite make 100, but who’s complaining? Nobody is complaining, y’all. I’m I’m I’m like a kid in the candy store. I cannot believe it. Now I’m thinking, what I’m gonna do with all these potatoes? Don’t worry, we gonna figure it out. We are going to figure it out. Okay, we’re back to the second bed. Let’s go. My husband really, really loves this tool. Love it. He said it works so good. So, they are falling to the ground. You can see them right there in the middle. He’s cutting off the sides. And y’all, we only have like 10 or 15 minutes of daylight. So, I don’t know that we’ll get the whole bed, but let’s see what all we can harvest. Y’all, I cannot express to you how exciting this whole project was. Um, it took a lot longer than we anticipated, but it was good for my husband and I. We enjoyed working together to get it done. He definitely had the strength and um did the heavy lifting and I was just there to kind of clear the way um pick the potatoes up, clean them off, and kind of put them in the crate. You can see y’all, we are picking out some huge, huge potatoes. Um, which is so exciting. I always say that it’s like a treasure hunt when you’re growing things underground like tubers, potatoes, garlic, onions, carrots, beets, radishes, things that you don’t see what’s growing on the top. You can see leaves are growing um, and things like that, but you don’t know the size of whatever is under the ground. It’s like a treasure hunt. One, you just want to first make sure that there’s something actually there, but then two, to pull it out and see that it is the shape, the size, and it’s so big. Um, and as you can see, our dogs are all interested, too. Why? I have no idea. I think it’s just really wherever I am. That’s where they want to be. Um, but you can see I have one on one side and one on the other side. They are all up in the mix. Um, and again, I’ve mentioned it a few times on this video. Um, one of the reasons why it took much longer than we anticipated is that the soil in this bed is just heavily compacted. You can see my husband is having to stand um inside the bed with a shovel to dig up just to kind of get the potatoes up. You can see, look how big that potato right there is. Um, and you can see that a piece broke off. But you’re thinking, man, it’s already so long. What else could be down there? Like how big was it actually? Um, and I hate to say that we did break off quite a few pieces. Um, not on purpose, but just the nature of us trying to get these potatoes out of there. Now, the potatoes are still fine. Um, that they’re if they’re broke off. It doesn’t mean that they’re not edible. It just means that they’re not going to store potentially as well. Um, that’s if they’re not um heavily um cured or whatever and get a thick skin on it. So, but they’re still good. Um, but man, it was so hard to kind of pull them out whole and for them to be intact. Um, you can see y’all just in this one little area. I mean, we’re still here 2 or 3 minutes later still trying to get potatoes out. We see potatoes. That’s why you see me digging. Like, we see potatoes there. It’s just trying to get them out. But overall, great great great time doing this um day in and day out as we kept trying to get all of our little treasures. We’re still at it. It’s dusk, but it ain’t pitch black. So, we still going. Here’s another one. And y’all look, we actually broke it off by accident, but we’re thinking we had the whole potato because look how big it is. I mean, how much bigger was it? So, we as we pulled up, we thought we had the whole potato and it broke off some, but that’s okay. It’ll be just fine. Um, so we are probably halfway through this bed and I would say the yield is less. When you say, honey, so far it seem like it’s a little less. Yeah. Let me show you what we have. We have some really huge potatoes and then we have some that are like I would say average size. But half of our basket is full. He’s He’s hitting another cluster now. And they look pretty big. I don’t know if you’ll be able to see, but that’s kind of where we are right now. There’s again huge potatoes. Huge. And then some are just average size. Overall, I would say probably less, but time will tell once we get the final weigh in. Okay, y’all. We’re going to call it for tonight. In my mind, I was not thinking this was going to be um a several day affair, but it looks like it’s going to be a several day affair. But thank you for joining us on day two. We will be back on the next day, hopefully tomorrow, to finish this bed. Okay, he just pulled one. Let me see. Honey, is it intact? Oh, yes. Oh my goodness, y’all. This is unreal. these potatoes, y’all. I have never ever ever ever ever grown potatoes this big. To God be the glory. Oh my goodness. So, let me show you if I can the basket so far. What’ you say we halfway through? Yeah, we’re about halfway through. We’re about halfway through. You want to go ahead and weigh this one? So, you can see we’re pretty much halfway through the bed. Um, so we still have a half to go. Plus, we still have a whole another bed right there. That’ll be our final bed. So, we’ll be back tomorrow to finish up this bed, but we’re going to go ahead and get a weight on this one right here. Hey y’all, it’s day three. We’re back at it on sweet potato mission. Okay, so last night we weighed the potatoes that we got from half of the second bed and it was 33 lbs. So y’all, our grand total s so far for one bed and a half is 122 lbs. Can we make 200, y’all? Can we make 200? Now, let me just um preface this. I think I’ve said it before, but I want to just make sure I say it again that it’s taking us a long time because remember y’all, we are coming out here and we have like an hour and a half max on both days that we did it. So, if I was dedicating a whole day, it probably would still take, if I had to guess, four or five hours just because the soil is very compacted, the potatoes are so huge, and they are in there like it’s taking some work to get them out. Um, and so that’s the reason why, remember y’all, we don’t do this full-time. We’re doing this in our spare time. And so it’s been um it is a very busy week because my husband and I um by the time you see this, you see this video, we probably are out of town, but we’re preparing to go out of town for 10 days. And so we have a long list or I I definitely have a long list of stuff that I’m trying to get done before we leave. And one of those is harvesting all the potatoes and getting my garlic in. Let’s see whether or not I’m successful. So, and then plus I have my business work on top of all that plus a whole bunch of other stuff. I’m preaching to the choir. I’m busy. So, I I can only dedicate um the hours that I have and here lately it’s just been like an hour and a half each day. So, that’s why it’s taking us a long time. Now, today at this moment, I’m out here by myself. We going to see if I can make any progress because my husband is tied up doing something else. Um and again, we’re just kind of running like this. Um so, let’s see if your girl can make any progress on her own. Um, and one of the things that I did was last night I went back and watched um, our video from last year. I will put it up here of harvesting our sweet potatoes. Now, remember last year we only had one bed and that one bed was on the very end. This bed that we haven’t done, that’s where the sweet potatoes were. So, it’s going to be interesting to see um, how that bed is and how it does and if that soil is loose. Because on my video, the soil was very loose. I actually harvested the bed last year all by myself. My husband wasn’t even in town and I had no issues whatsoever. Like I was pulling up potatoes and just pulling them up out of the ground. The soil was very loose. The potatoes were not nearly as big as they are now. But I also harvested last year um the end of August. I’m now in midocctober. Now last year I put my potatoes in the ground a month earlier, but still it was a much different experience. And y’all, last year I got like 25 to 30 pounds of sweet potatoes. Y’all, already the Lord has quadrupled. Now again, I allocated more space. I have three beds instead of one. But y’all, in that one bed, I only got 25 to 30 lbs um of potatoes. So, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens when we get to that bed. But I’m just giving you all of that as context. Now, let’s get back to this bed. We’re on bed number two. Um, in case you’ve, you know, tuned in or fast forwarded or whatever, we’re on bed number two of harvesting our sweet potatoes. The first bed we harvested was Bayou Bell and Cargo. This bed that we’re harvesting right now is Bog Regard. So, we’ve already done half the bed. Let’s see what else we can get in the other half of the bed. Okay, y’all. Game over. I hit a cluster. They’re there. I can see them. But around the cluster is a whole I don’t have the word colony. It’s a whole bunch of fire ants. If you’ve been here, you know I don’t do fire ants. They love me and I hate them. And I’m highly allergic. I have a severe allergic reaction if they bite me. Like I’m down for the count for 24 hours. So I’m not even pressing my luck. Let me show you the cluster that I hit. And I feel like you saw me like pulling the vines because for me I can see them much better if I can just get the vines out of the way. It’s hard for me to hold the vines back and try to dig at the same time. But I see a cluster and I feel like there’s probably some in the middle that I’m just not getting to, which is probably why I need my husband. But let me at least show you the cluster that I see. So there’s a cluster right there. I don’t know if the fire ants are showing up, but they’re all over those potatoes. There’s another potato right back there. I don’t see fire ants over there. So maybe if I can get over on that side, I might be able to get those potatoes. Huh. It’s kind of treacherous in here with all these vines in the middle of the aisleway. Let me see what I can do. Okay, y’all. What I was able to accomplish was I was able to kind of cut back um the sweet potato vines and I was able to unear a couple that you can probably see back there. I’ll bring closer. And then I got this one that is that is huge. Now the soil right down there at that far end is very loose. Those potatoes just came out and they were intact. I didn’t have to struggle with them. I didn’t have to they didn’t break off or anything. Let me show you the one that came out that I was able to bring to the bin. Again, absolutely huge. If you can see how big that sweet potato is. Absolutely huge. Intact. As I’m putting in the bin, I’m just um wiping off the excess um dirt and I’ll put it in the bin kind of just like this. I have two more back there that I can go and grab. Um and that other cluster is full of the ants. I’m going to keep doing what I can and we’ll see what happens because there were um ants in bed number two. And then I was also having a challenge. It was just so compacted in that certain spot in the corner that I could not pull um it up. I really did need my husband. So I decided, well, let me try bed number three. So I went ahead and moved on to bed number three, which um is the Evangelon sweet potato. Even though bed number two wasn’t done, I was just trying to make progress because as of now, y’all, we’re on day three. So, I’m just trying to get the potatoes harvested. So, I start cutting away the vines in bed number three just so that I can kind of get a sense of what’s what. These vines had grown so long, so big, so thick that literally, y’all, they were all in the aisleways, all in the grass covering stuff up. You just couldn’t hardly see. And for me, I could operate better if I could just get the vines out of the way. Y’all, it’s so bright out here. It’s hard to find light. But oh my goodness, I hope you can see this. I feel like it keeps saying the same thing over and over. I don’t think it could get any bigger. Do you see this? This is probably I mean, you can see how long and big that is. Unbelievable. So, this is the third bed. This is Evangelon. I’ve never grown evangeline before, but my goodness. My goodness. When my husband sees that and then it seems like it’s broke off a little bit on the end and I’m like, you going to have the nerve to be even bigger than that. So maybe it’s just a tip. I don’t know. I’m breathing hard because y’all this is hard work, but we getting it done. Hey y’all. It’s day four and y’all today is the final day. These potatoes are coming up out of the ground. All of them today. I got reinforcement today and I am confident that my wonderful husband is not going to leave until it is done. D O N E. So, we about to get to it. So, what we’ve done you where you left off, you know, you can start digging, honey. Um, I left off on bed number two, which is the board. And remember, I hit um an area there where there were fire ants. We don’t do fire ants. And so I left some bunches. There’s probably several bunches out here that I didn’t get to. But then also, we had started on the third bed. So what my husband has done is he has taken away all of the vines in both beds. Well, I had already done this one. He took the vines off of the third bed so we can just go and dig potatoes. So y’all, final round. We about to get it. Okay y’all, we have Been at it for about an hour and a half and we think we’re done. Bed empty. Bed empty. Bed empty. Now the third bed was Evangelon. Um those were deep like they were like almost like growing straight up and down a lot of them. And they were like deep, deep, deep. And then there would be some more deep, deep, deep. So it took a while. A lot of um arm power by my husband. I give credit where credit is due. I um I move dirt with my hand. I clean the potatoes. All that good stuff. So my husband’s going to get the scale so we can get our final tally. So we have two buckets. Um, I don’t know if you can see. There’s one there that’s pretty full. And then we have another one here that is full but not overflowing to the top like the other one. So, remember we left off with our total being 122 between one and a half beds. Now, we’ve done the other one and a half beds. Let’s see what we have. Now, this is definitely less than what we did before just from the looks of it. and and all of that. Um, in terms of the size of potatoes, definitely the first bed won out with the Bayou Bell and Cargo Gold. We got some big ones as you can see. Let’s just come over here. We have some big bow regards, too. It just was not as I don’t think it was as many because in the first bed, we were able to get two um buckets just from that one bed. And I think this bed, we got a bucket probably overflowing. I took some and put them over there. But like, yeah, the potatoes are still big. No doubt about that. Look at this. Like, I could go on and on and on. But he has the scale. So, let’s go over to the sidewalk and let’s get our final total. And then once we get the final total, let’s talk about what we’re going to do now that we’ve had them we have them all harvested and what our next plan is. Okay, y’all. So, after I saw the 122, of course, my next goal is 150. My stretch goal is 200 lb. But looking, I’m judging by the looks. I’m thinking we may come in around 180. But let’s see. Okay, y’all. Moment of truth. Let’s see what our total is. 41.4. I guess this one’s going to be 35. So, it’s 41.4. Okay. Okay, y’all. This is the second basket. The second and final. Move. Lexi. Move. 30.6. All right, let’s add it up, y’all. It’s 194.4. I told that he got to find me two more potatoes. I got to make 200. 194.4, y’all. Oh my god. Find me two potatoes, Mason. Find me two potatoes, y’all. Okay, now y’all know they’re gonna think I’m nasty, but I’m about to go over to my compost bin because there was a potato I put in the compost bin that was like um not worth not good to eat. I wonder how much that weigh. Don’t talk about me. You grow 194 pounds. You tell me if you ain’t going to try to make 200. Mason, find me two more potatoes. I can’t believe it, y’all. We came in with 194. Yes, I’m over at my compost be. I sure am. Oh, y’all. This nasty. Let me rethink this. Okay, y’all. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I’ve already flipped it and turned it somewhere down at the bottom. Okay. So, we can’t do that. But can we just say that probably an average potato, I’m just going to give myself one pound. It might have been two. So if that was 194.4, if I give myself one more pound, that’s 195. So I need like three more potatoes to make 200. Did I um did I throw away any more? No, it was only one potato I’m that I that I recall putting in the compost bin. Oh, y’all, I’m grateful. I am grateful, but it’s something about saying 200. Two, y’all. At 194.4, I can’t even round up and say 195. But now, I know that I have gotten rid of some of those little straps, like the little bitty ones, you know? I’m like, oh, I don’t need that. That’s that’s that’s going to be too much trouble. So, I’m probably at 19. Okay, cuz I’m going to keep it honest. I’m not going to be I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to be unethical, but my total is 194.4, four, but I know I have thrown away something that’s 01. So, I can say 195 if we round up. Do y’all give me permission to round up? Do you give me permission to round up? Now, I know some of y’all who probably little math wizards and geniuses, you going to say, “Girl, you at 194.4.” But where my people in the back who say, “Girl, you can round up.” If look, if I can round up, put round up in the chat. Put round up in the chat. Mason, did you find me some more potatoes? Some small stragglers. He found some stragglers on the ground. No, they were in the bed. Oh, they were in the bed. Well, babe, you should have put them on the scale. I’m going ree that. Oh, okay. Y’all, I shall not be defeated. Hold the phone. Hold the phone. I got a potato. Oh, that’s a small one. No. Come over, y’all. That’s at least going to get me to 190 4.5 if nothing else. That’s a potato. That is going to get me at least 194.4. 4 I mean.5. We already at 194.4. Look what we just found in the ground. Let me come from this side. All right, we might be at 195. There’s another one. Okay, y’all. We’re going to reweigh the basket when we added the three potatoes and see 32.4. Okay, new total is 196.2. So, we didn’t went from 194.4 to 196.2. I can’t let it go, y’all. I cannot let it go. It’s like the alter call. You know how the minister be up. He like, “It’s one more. It’s one more.” I didn’t found another one. I just turned my camera back on. Now, we’re back at bed number one. Y’all, I know this video is eternal. Get Get blessed. Okay, hold on. Okay, y’all. There’s another potato right there. Do you see it? There’s one another one right there. Okay, y’all. Final total 196.2. To God be the glory. I have dug and dug. My back hurts. Everything hurts. I am convinced that my 3.8 is in these beds, but I just haven’t found it. And I’m going to call it right here. Now, the next thing for these beds is for us to kind of flip them, smooth them out, add compost so we can plant our garlic back here. That’s what’s going behind the beds. So, I have a guy coming over to help me tomorrow, y’all. When I tell y’all my back hurts, oh my goodness. I have a guy coming over tomorrow to help me kind of flip these beds, smooth them out, put the compost down and all that, and get it ready for garlic. If by chance he finds more potatoes, I will let you know. But as of right now, our total is 196.2. And y’all, even though it’s not the 2000 that I was hoping for, I’m so close. And I am so blessed. I am so grateful because last year I had about 30 lbs at the max of sweet potatoes. And this year, the Lord told me to triple my production. But well, not but I did triple my production in terms of I planted three beds instead of one. But instead of God tripling my yield, I had 30 lbs last year. I don’t even know what the number is. Quadruple sexily. I don’t know. Sexruple. I don’t know. I went from 30 to 196 just like that. I’m so grateful. I have never ever grown this many sweet potatoes. And it’s going to be interesting to see how long they last, but we got sweet potatoes for a minute. So, send me all your sweet potato ideas. Now, one of the things, of course, we eat a lot of baked sweet potatoes. We do um candy y like candied or sweet potatoes, you know, where we slice them, roast them, or, you know, in butter, brown sugar, that kind of thing. We do that. Uh sweet potato pods, we’ll do that for the holidays. Um, and I’ve never made sweet potato fries, but I want to make some sweet potato fries. And nobody in my family really likes sweet potato fries, but me. So, I can make me some. And I could also dice some up and probably freeze cuz I used to buy them like that from Azure Standard and use it for like sweet potato hash. I’ve never done that before, but I think that would be good. But let me know all your sweet potato recipes because we going to have a lot of sweet potatoes. Now, from here, um, if I was to go in the house right now and try to cook these sweet potatoes, they’re not going to taste good. They have to cure, which means to dry out. So, just like we cure our onions and our garlic, your potatoes have to cure as well. So, when it comes specifically to sweet potatoes, you want to let them cure in a warm, dry place. The warmer the better, right? So, somewhere around 75 to 85 degrees would be ideal, and they would cure in about 7 7 to 10 days. Now, with the temperature being the way it is, we have ours in the garage because it’s going to be the warmest place. Now, eventually, they’re going to live over there in that root cellar. That’s where they’re going to be. But right now, the root cellar is going to be much cooler than my garage. So, we’re going to have them curing in the garage. We have them on tables. I’m already out of space. I don’t know what I’m going to do with these two bins, but we’re going to figure it out. Um, and we’ll let them stay there for a couple of weeks. What happens when it cures or dries out? The starches um lessen and it gets sweeter. If I was to cook this potato right now, it’s not going to taste sweet at all. Like at all. But once you let it cure and dry out, that is when the the sugars start to I don’t know what the word is. Deepen, get stronger, get sweeter. That’s what’s going to make it a sweet potato and it’s going to taste really delicious once it cures. Also what happens in the current process is that the skin gets tougher so that it can store well. Again the as you were as we were pulling out the sweet potatoes you saw that they were easily scratched. Um because the skin on the potato right now at this stage is very very thin. They are easily nicked. They are easily bruised. For the ones that are bruised heavily or that’s scraped, we’re going to have to eat those first. They’re not bad. They’re still going to be good but they’re not going to store as long. The ones that are going to store the longest are going to be the ones that are completely intact where the skin was not scratched, not bruised. Okay? So, as we cure them, it’s going to get sweeter. The sugars are I can’t think of the word. The sugars are going to deepen, get better. It’s going to get sweet, but then also the skin is going to dry out to where it can be stored long term. And they should store for at least 6 months. I don’t know about namas. I’ve never had them last that long. So, we’re going to see um what happens and how long they store. Um, and again, I have no idea. I really I think that’s really enough sweet potatoes, y’all, to last us. I don’t know that they would last a year because I think everything I read said they’ll store for like 6 months. I don’t know about 9 months. Um, but I’m going to look it up again. Yeah. So, I I got to think that’s enough sweet potatoes. I I don’t know. We’re going to see. It’s our first time doing it. But y’all, I I’m blown away. When we came out here, we had dedicated about an hour, hour and a half. And y’all see it took four days. Now, that’s because we only had like an hour to two hours each day. If we were to do this all in one day, if I had to guess the time that we spent in harvesting these beds, one, because the soil was compacted, two, because there was a lot of potatoes, three, they were very, very deep and big. I would say it would take still four to five hours to harvest these these three beds because we probably spent we spent an hour and a half today and an hour and a half the other two days. That was four that’s four and a half. And then I came out here yesterday. Remember I was by myself lightweight. I ain’t get I didn’t get accomplished much. So we’re not going to count my 45 minutes. So if I had to guess a good four to five hours is what it would have taken. We just did not have that in one block of time. So that’s why it took us four days. But y’all I am blown away. I hope that this video was entertaining. I hope that it was encouraging. I hope that you learned how to do your sweet potatoes next year. Give them space and give them time. Those are the two things I want you to take away from this video. And then know that once you pull them, let them cure. Don’t go in the house, roast them up, and eat and be like, “This sweet potato nasty.” No, it has to cure in order for it to taste good and sweet and right. Okay, so y’all, I’m so excited. Um, we tried three new varieties. Um, I definitely definitely will be doing that again next year. Bayubell is definitely on the list. Now, it’ll be interesting to see if I can tell a difference in the taste. We’ll see. But anyway, we got a whole year to think about and plan about what we’re going to do next year, but definitely we’ll be doing more than one bed. I guess we’ll do three again. We’ll see. If you look back at my first sweet potato harvest video, let me pop it up here. You will see I was in my tunnel and I did not get nearly this much. to y’all on year five. Look what God has done. Do keep going. I don’t care if this year was a wash. Keep going. If you if there’s something that your family likes that you like, don’t stop until you get it. I’m so full. Let me get off this video so I can go and just tell the Lord thank you. I’m so I’m so grateful. It never ceases to amaze me. at the faithfulness. Let me end this video. I just want to encourage you. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. I had somebody mention to me just last week. She said, “I really want to be a gardener like you. I want to be a gardener like you.” And she said it with all sincerity. And my response was, “You can, y’all. There is nothing there is absolutely nothing special about me. I put in the work. I pray and I ask the Lord to bless the labor of my hands. And he does it. Y’all, this is where my garden started. April 20th, 19, excuse me, 19th. April 20th, 2020. It was this bed right here. It’s either this one or that one. I think it was this one where I knelt down and prayed when I put the first seeds in the ground. I was like, “Lord, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how I put a seed in the ground and it’s going to yield food. How does the seed know it’s squash? How does the seed know it’s a cucumber? Like, it doesn’t compute. It doesn’t make sense to me. because I’m so logical. I’m so analytical. And y’all, I still don’t know. I just know that God said he gave us every herb bearing seed. And I just know just like when you have a baby, it’s a miracle life. What I know is that when you put a seed in the ground, miracles happen in that soil. That’s what I know. And I’m in awe. I’m in absolute awe how God has ordained my path that I love this so much and that I get a chance to talk to you guys and to inspire you. Don’t give up. If you want to be a gardener, if you want to grow mounds and mounds of food, don’t give up because this is year five and I just grew almost 200 lb of sweet potatoes. Y’all, this is a journey. I can’t wait to see you in the next video. Let’s do it together.