wrote:

> Thinking ahead to next year's garden...
> Both my husband and I very much like sweet potatoes. They've become
> awfully expensive though. And I detest the commercial 'canned yams'
> - awful sugar-laden objects that look like...well, never mind what
> they look like. OK, so assume I grow them next year. How can I
> preserve them? The usual way - just keep in a cool, dry place - is
> out. I don't have a cool dry place. Our house is tiny, tiny, tiny
> with no extra room for sweet potatoes (and not cold enough anyway).
>
> Our (unheated) garage is large, but will be way too cold in winter
> (it gets down to around -20 Fahrenheit or colder here each winter).
>
> We have no cellar. We have an unheated attic but it's inaccessible,
> neither of us can get into it. The attic would probably be way too
> cold anyway.
>
> I have a lovely new dehydrator. I have the luxury of a large
> freezer, although it pretty much fills up with garden produce each
> fall. I will buy a pressure canner if I think I'd use it enough to
> justify the cost.
>
> Has anyone canned, dried, or frozen sweet potatoes with good results?
> Thanks!
> Pat


You ought to be able to cube them and [pressure] can them using the BBB
directions for pumpkin or hubbard squash. Don't puree it, it has to be
in chunks. (I've never tried it).

I usually cook, puree, and freeze pumpkin and winter squash in 2 cup
portions. It freezes really well for use later in pies.

You do know they take a *long* growing season? The vines are pretty,
and if they bloom the flowers look like morning glories.

Best regards,
Bob

> ... The vines are pretty,
> and if they bloom the flowers look like morning glories.

Also, I've heard that you can eat the leaves and vine shoots....
Here, I found this at Texax A&M's site:

> The edible leaves and stem tips of sweet potato vines are well known in
> many parts of the world. Often considered a poor mans food, sweet
> potato foliage has a rich protein content that helps supplement the
> nutritional value of the roots.
>
> As for all vegetable parts, there is a great deal of variation within
> varieties in flavor and culinary characteristics of these secondary
> parts. For example, some sweet-potato stem tips in certain varieties
> are bitter, with a resinous flavor that is too strong.

Never tried it, tho'. There were/are some recipes around on the
Internet....

wrote:

>
>Thinking ahead to next year's garden...
>
>Both my husband and I very much like sweet potatoes.
>They've become awfully expensive though. And I detest the
>commercial 'canned yams' - awful sugar-laden objects that
>look like...well, never mind what they look like.
>
>OK, so assume I grow them next year.
>
>How can I preserve them?
>
>The usual way - just keep in a cool, dry place - is out.
>
>I don't have a cool dry place. Our house is tiny, tiny,
>tiny with no extra room for sweet potatoes (and not cold
>enough anyway).
>
>Our (unheated) garage is large, but will be way too cold in
>winter (it gets down to around -20 Fahrenheit or colder here
>each winter).
>
>We have no cellar. We have an unheated attic but it's
>inaccessible, neither of us can get into it. The attic
>would probably be way too cold anyway.
>
>I have a lovely new dehydrator. I have the luxury of a
>large freezer, although it pretty much fills up with garden
>produce each fall. I will buy a pressure canner if I think
>I'd use it enough to justify the cost.
>
>Has anyone canned, dried, or frozen sweet potatoes with good
>results?
>
>Thanks!
>
>Pat

Hi, Pat.
We cook them in the microwave, cut them in half lengthwise, scrape out
the flesh, mash it up a bit, put it in containers and freeze. We find
it works very well for us. We also have a dehydrator and, although
we've never tried it, I don't think home dried sweet potatoes would
work out very well but, I've been wrong before.
As to growing your own, be aware that they are a very long season
vegetable. We're not that much North of you and Gerry starts ours in
early February but, they don't get planted out 'till there is
absolutely (hopefully) no danger of frost. She starts the slips from
organically grown sweet potatoes, ones that haven't been treated with
chemicals to retard sprouting, then babies them along until planting
out time. BTW, they are a very attractive plant, make a good ground
cover too.
Good luck and most of all, have fun.

Ross

Pat, I would try to store them anyway. I lay mine on a self in a cool, dark
room.

Once they are cured, they cant be stored in a cold place. If they get 50
degrees F. or cooler, the sugar turns back into starch. My room stays
between 70 and 75 degrees F and I still have some I grew last summer (2002).
They have been down on the shelf for nearly a year. I have a friend that
puts them in a square plastic case that holds 4 gallons of milk. The holes
are small enough to hold the potatoes, and big enough to let the air
circulate around them. Mine just lay on a shelf on the wall in one of the
rooms we use for storage.

To cure them, wash them off when you dig them and ideally, lay them on
something out of the sun in 80 degrees F, and 80 percent humidity for 10
days. If you cant get the warmth and humidity amounts I stated, it will
take an additional week or so to cure them.

The smaller ones taste better than the larger ones. I give away or sell the
big ones after setting aside about 15 to 20 for next years "slips".

To cook them, I wash them again, cut off any bad spots, rub cooking oil on
them, roll them in tinfoil and bake them at 350 for an hour (longer of they
are big). When they are done, I skin and eat them. They are sweet enough I
don't have to add sugar and moist enough I don't have to add butter (I am an
overweight diabetic).

Maybe you have a friend or some relation that would give you a portion of a
storage room in their basement. (Give them the big ones and they will love
you.)

Dwayne





> wrote in message
...
>
> Thinking ahead to next year's garden...
>
> Both my husband and I very much like sweet potatoes.
> They've become awfully expensive though. And I detest the
> commercial 'canned yams' - awful sugar-laden objects that
> look like...well, never mind what they look like.
>
> OK, so assume I grow them next year.
>
> How can I preserve them?
>
> The usual way - just keep in a cool, dry place - is out.
>
> I don't have a cool dry place. Our house is tiny, tiny,
> tiny with no extra room for sweet potatoes (and not cold
> enough anyway).
>
> Our (unheated) garage is large, but will be way too cold in
> winter (it gets down to around -20 Fahrenheit or colder here
> each winter).
>
> We have no cellar. We have an unheated attic but it's
> inaccessible, neither of us can get into it. The attic
> would probably be way too cold anyway.
>
> I have a lovely new dehydrator. I have the luxury of a
> large freezer, although it pretty much fills up with garden
> produce each fall. I will buy a pressure canner if I think
> I'd use it enough to justify the cost.
>
> Has anyone canned, dried, or frozen sweet potatoes with good
> results?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Pat
> --
> To email me, remove the trap and type my first
> name in its place.
>
> CLICK DAILY TO FEED THE HUNGRY
> United States: http://www.stopthehunger.com/
> International: http://www.thehungersite.com/

Pat said:
> I'm beginning to think that I should advertise in the local
> paper that we want to 'rent' cellar space.
>

What a great idea! I hope it works for you.

We don't have much storage space either. I'm so tired of potatoes
sprouting before we can eat them!

I was pre-teen when my grandparents moved off the farm, but I still
remember visiting and going to 'the celler' for all kinds of
goodies.


> It's not just sweets, I have no place to store carrots,
> apples, white potatoes, beets, etc. I can grow all these
> (except the apples, and I hope to plant a couple of dwarf
> apple trees next spring) but we have no place to store them.
> I could share them all with the owner of the cold-cellar.
>

winners all around!

Deb
--
(in Oregon, the pacific northWET) ;>

I don't know about everything you mentioned, but I do know you can store
carrots in a plastic bucket. Put about an inch of sand in the bottom, a
layer of carrots (not touching each other), another inch of sand, another
layer of carrots, etc. Make the last layer of sand 3 to 4 inches deep and
put a lid on it. Bury it in the yard with the lid at ground level. Cover
it with mulch. I set mine in the garage, and they were good till past
April. You might try some of the others (Not sweet potatoes, they need air
circulating around them).

Dwayne

> wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 03:14:12 GMT, "Dwayne"
> > wrote:
>
> >Pat, I would try to store them anyway. I lay mine on a self in a cool,
dark
> >room.
>
> Our house is 570 sf over all, of which one room (88 square
> feet - 8 x 11) is an office.
>
> So we have a grand total of 482 sf living space...this is
> about HALF the space of an average single-wide trailer. No
> extra rooms for storage here. Not even an unused small
> shelf. The space under the bed is already utilized
>
> Thanks for the good info!
>
>
> >
> >Maybe you have a friend or some relation that would give you a portion of
a
> >storage room in their basement. (Give them the big ones and they will
love
> >you.)
>
> I'm beginning to think that I should advertise in the local
> paper that we want to 'rent' cellar space.
>
> It's not just sweets, I have no place to store carrots,
> apples, white potatoes, beets, etc. I can grow all these
> (except the apples, and I hope to plant a couple of dwarf
> apple trees next spring) but we have no place to store them.
> I could share them all with the owner of the cold-cellar.
>
> We haven't lived here very long, and the friends we have
> made here either don't have a cellar, or have finished
> cellars they use for various purposes themselves...but
> SOMEONE in town must have a root cellar they aren't using.
>
> We really cannot dig a root cellar either: 1. We have no
> money for it and cannot physically do it ourselves and 2. We
> live on the side of a hill, and there is underground water
> running down the hill. Our next-door neighbors are in the
> process of building an addition to their house (with a
> basement) and they've had all *kinds* of trouble with water.
> They're needing some very expensive special drainage,
> involving tons of rocks, etc.
>
> Pat
> --
> To email me, remove the trap and type my first
> name in its place.
>
> CLICK DAILY TO FEED THE HUNGRY
> United States: http://www.stopthehunger.com/
> International: http://www.thehungersite.com/

In article >,
"Dwayne" > wrote:

> I don't know about everything you mentioned, but I do know you can store
> carrots in a plastic bucket. Put about an inch of sand in the bottom, a
> layer of carrots (not touching each other), another inch of sand, another
> layer of carrots, etc. Make the last layer of sand 3 to 4 inches deep and
> put a lid on it. Bury it in the yard with the lid at ground level. Cover
> it with mulch. I set mine in the garage, and they were good till past
> April. You might try some of the others (Not sweet potatoes, they need air
> circulating around them).
>
> Dwayne


May I ask in what zone you reside? My husband and I have been
discussing this type of storage lately and I was curious what others did.

I live in zone 5 now, but when I learned about it I was in zone 7. There,
they bury it in the ground. It did very well for me in the garage here.

Dwayne

"Phaedrine Stonebridge" > wrote in
message
news
> In article >,
> "Dwayne" > wrote:
>
> > I don't know about everything you mentioned, but I do know you can store
> > carrots in a plastic bucket. Put about an inch of sand in the bottom, a
> > layer of carrots (not touching each other), another inch of sand,
another
> > layer of carrots, etc. Make the last layer of sand 3 to 4 inches deep
and
> > put a lid on it. Bury it in the yard with the lid at ground level.
Cover
> > it with mulch. I set mine in the garage, and they were good till past
> > April. You might try some of the others (Not sweet potatoes, they need
air
> > circulating around them).
> >
> > Dwayne
>
>
> May I ask in what zone you reside? My husband and I have been
> discussing this type of storage lately and I was curious what others did.