In my previous blog post, I compared growing sweet potatoes from purchased slips with growing them from old tubers. My sister planted a shriveled old tuber from her previous crop, and I planted slips I had purchased from a mail-order company. This post will review how my two varieties of sweet potatoes fared over the growing season.

As a reminder, the two sweet potato varieties I grew this summer were the white-skinned White Bonita and the burgundy pink-skinned Bayou Belle.

How My Sweet Potato Plants Grew

Both varieties grew well during the summer. The combination of the fresh organic raised bed soil, adequate watering and sufficient rain—and maybe a couple of granulated organic fertilizer applications—allowed the vines to grow really well. In fact, the Bayou Belle vines grew maybe 8-10 ft. long, probably twice the length of the White Bonita vines.

White Bonita: Big Tubers, Disappointing Yield

So, how did the crops turn out? Honestly, my White Bonita crop harvest was underwhelming. From four plants I harvested four or five tubers. To their credit, those tubers were really big! But still, very disappointing. I also ended up with about a dozen very small “nodules” that appear to be roots that didn’t develop into actual tubers. They were about the size of a gherkin pickle. I’ve kept them in a dark container and I’ll see if maybe these will hold over until next spring. If they start sending up shoots, I’ll put them in the ground and hope for growth.

Bayou Belle: A Bumper Crop of Sweet Potatoes

The Bayou Belle plants were the complete opposite. They gave me about a dozen very large tubers and a bunch of smaller ones. The big ones were at least 3 lbs. and about 8-10 in. in length. Most of the large ones were oddly shaped and curvy. One possibility for the shape is that perhaps the tubers encountered other tubers or the sides of the raised bed and had to change the direction of their growth. This year I planted about 8-9 slips, so next year I will plant fewer of them in the raised bed so they can be planted farther apart.

To recap, next year will be an experiment based on this year’s crop. In one raised bed I’ll plant fewer Bayou Belle slips to give them more room to spread out, and I’ll see whether fewer plants produce tubers traditionally shaped tubers. I’m also curious to see whether those tiny White Bonita nodules will sprout and give me another crop. If they send up small sprouts after being kept in a dark and cool space all winter, I’ll pop those in the other raised bed.