sweet potatoes a disappointment

This year I experimented with sweet potatoes.

I got them as slips (they are not tubers like ordinary potatoes), and they were potted up into small pots for 3 weeks and then out by mid June (which was this year when it was just about safe to do so). I had 4 in pots and 3 in the ground.

I dug them up a few days ago, and was very disappointed by the number and, in particular, the size of the sweet potatoes:

There is nothing to show scale in this picture - but they are small, maximum 3 inches (7cm) long and mainly skinny.

I had some with lunch today and also had beans, swiss chard and a bay leaf from the garden.

Very wet this morning, so didn't have a bike ride but did have a walk round the block this afternoon to get my back moving. As I came home there were two parakeets flying overhead. Nearest I've seen them before was on the Lea Navigation near the old Middlesex Filter Beds.

Finding space for sweet potatoes

A box of sweet potato "slips" from the Organic Gardening catalogue arrived at work this week. I had forgotten I had ordered them last autumn!

I have to grow them in pots for a few weeks before planting them out by mid June (so they've arrived just in time!). They seem to be fairly slug resistant which will be a good thing in my garden!

Sweet potatoes last longer in the larder than potatoes do, and add a lovely flavour to a stew.