Harvesting Okinawan Sweet Potatoes

It's been 23 weeks since I planted my Okinawan Sweet Potato cuttings (see this blog entry).

A couple of months ago, I tried to harvest some Sweet Potatoes (see this blog entry). Unfortunately, it was too soon and the Okinawan Sweet Potatoes were too small.

That is the one problem with growing Sweet Potatoes: you don't know if any are growing or if they are big enough to harvest without cutting away the leaves and digging. Doing this effectively commits you to harvesting even if it is too soon.

The recommended maturity period for Okinawan Sweet Potatoes is 5 to 6 months, which is right about now.

I am growing Okinawan Sweet Potatoes in several different areas in my garden. So, I decided to go ahead and dig up one area and see what's there.

This picture shows the Okinawan Sweet Potato part of the garden that I choose to dig up.

There were a lot of leaves!!

The leaves and stems are edible. My mother-in-law eats them all of the time. She actually used to buy them from an Asian Supermarket before I started growing Sweet Potatoes. I have tried eating Okinawan Sweet Potato leaves myself and they are quite good.

I filled up an entire 30 gallon trash bag with the Okinawan Sweet Potato leaves and stems!

This picture shows what it looks like under all of the leaves. The planting area is a 3 feet in diameter circular Raised Bed. The Raised Bed is about 6 inches off of the ground.

This picture shows what I found after removing the top 4 inches of soil. Sure enough, there were Okinawan Sweet Potatoes!

This picture shows the Okinawan Sweet Potatoes that I harvested from the garden area.

The Okinawan Sweet Potatoes were good size.

But, I was a little disappointed that the yield was not more. I only got around 5 or 6 pounds.

I have another area of my garden that I am also growing Okinawan Sweet Potatoes. I'll dig up that area in about 6 weeks.

Update: See this blog entry for growing Okinawan Sweet Potatoes in a Container