Sweet potatoes

nhusa

nhusa

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my wife and like sweet potatoes
Sweet potato fries, mashes with lots of butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, etc.
Just before Thanksgiving we got some at Teeter Jeeters for less than $.50 a pound. they looked fantastic - I think it was $ .10 but can’t be sure - and we got a bunch.
later we learned that this is the sweet potato capital of the world and was looking forward to getting more.

a bit later they were around a dollar a pound and seem to remain at a dollar.

Is this normal? What is a good price? Is there a time the price drop?
Next time we are getting 100 pounds….
 
Judging from the inflation thread here I was just reading, get what you can while can, until you can’t.
Price shopping will become a thing of the past.
 
Grow your own, nothing to it. Be ware that they will start shriveling up if you don't eat them in a reasonable time. Towards them end of the time we store sweets we back them, mash them up and freeze them.
 
Find one of the producers in the eastern part of the state, around Clinton, and go load up. When raising sweet potato's, they need to be cured properly to last. So many days at a certain temp and certain humidity. Most won't sell them until they cured.

There are quite a few varieties grown, including a purple meat one.
 
REELDOC said:
Be ware that they will start shriveling up if you don't eat them in a reasonable time.
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Sugar content and the veriety has a large bearing on how long they will store. Kept at around 55-60 deg most will keep for months (dang near a year sometimes). Point of reference, we’re still eating on taters from the batch we got in October/November.

Keep in mind the ones that come from the store sit in a warehouse for months at times. We get ours fresh out the field, sometimes just turned/dug, at most they sit in the sun a couple days. They are delicious!
 
This reminds me that I have a healthy breakfast burrito recipe with ground turkey and sweet potato as the base. I need to make a batch.

Sweet taters are good and good for you eat away. We have an air fryer oven and make sweet tater fries pretty often. Good stuff.
 
hp468 said:
Sugar content and the veriety has a large bearing on how long they will store. Kept at around 55-60 deg most will keep for months (dang near a year sometimes). Point of reference, we’re still eating on taters from the batch we got in October/November.

Keep in mind the ones that come from the store sit in a warehouse for months at times. We get ours fresh out the field, sometimes just turned/dug, at most they sit in the sun a couple days. They are delicious!
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Yep, that's the problem I have now. No real place for a proper curing. I generally get a hundred to 150# and really have to bare down on storage before they go bad. I still have about 25# of large ones left that haven't bit the dust.
 
REELDOC said:
Yep, that's the problem I have now. No real place for a proper curing. I generally get a hundred to 150# and really have to bare down on storage before they go bad. I still have about 25# of large ones left that haven't bit the dust.
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I'll be honest, my storage solution is less than ideal. Cardboard boxes sitting in an unused bedroom that stays closed up (cooler in the winter than the rest of the house). It seems to work OK but i've seriously been considering building a potato mound or some other storage solution but we're limited on dry space that doesn't widely fluctuate temps. I've seen some interesting make shift root cellar designs utilizing old chest freezers but i'd be worried one would float up with our high water table. Really wish I had a basement.
 
hp468 said:
. Really wish I had a basement.
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FWIW, had one and glad I don’t anymore. Hurricane Matthew flooded the last one regardless of how fast I got the generator cranked to run the sump pump.
 
fieldgrade said:
FWIW, had one and glad I don’t anymore. Hurricane Matthew flooded the last one regardless of how fast I got the generator cranked to run the sump pump.
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You needed a trash pump i'm sure. I'd love to have one for food storage, even with the headache of the occasional deluge. Very few basements around here due to the water table, I can dig down a foot or two sometimes and hit water. Those that have them are on hills or hillsides. Matthew was the perfect storm for rainfall and flooding, no good way to prepare for that. My house a couple of my neighbors were on our own little island, almost 3ft deep water a couple hundred yards in every direction
 
Growing up, everyone that farmed grew red sweet potatoes to sell and white ones to eat, lol. We still prefer them but kind of hard to find, have best luck at Carly C's IGA or farmers market. We bake them in oven till juice starts to run out onto the pan and caramelizes. Then cool to room temp and peel. Sweet enough that you don't need sugar or butter.
 
Never thought about fresh sweet or otherwise taters but now I will. Prolly goes for collards too. I bought some of them at a Yankee chain grocery store yesterday and cooked them up and they were pretty darn good but doubt they were from NC. I think they can be grown year round here. A guy I used to work with had a poster that showed everything that could be grown in NC and what the seasons were. I need to find that poster.
 
Sweet potatoes are such a part of our diet I never even look at the price. I always buy organic sweet potatoes. We make pie several times a month. Two pies at a time and they don't last long. I have found the less sugar I add, the better the pie taste. I am down to about less than 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup maple syrup.
 
hp468 said:
NC does wine also....
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we are red wine snobs- the only NC wine we currently like is Childers #3 red…
Califunny Sterling vineyard and NY Dr Constantine Frank wines are our favorite special wine.

Everyday is a Califunny Mark West Pinot Noir. We get a case plus 2 every two weeks…
 
I worked on a job site one day next to a sweet tater field that had just been dug and picked. There was a ton left in the field. Got me a box and filled it up. The guys on the job had hauled away so many they were no longer picking them up. We ate sweet taters around here for a long time.
 
Schattenreiter said:
I worked on a job site one day next to a sweet tater field that had just been dug and picked. There was a ton left in the field. Got me a box and filled it up. The guys on the job had hauled away so many they were no longer picking them up. We ate sweet taters around here for a long time.
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We are allowed in family fields after they have been dug/picked. There’s always a slew that are good eatin size left behind. This past year we filled up 3 8’ truck beds and a ranger. Most get passed along to friends, family, and folks in a local church. Lots of work but we enjoy it.
 
nhusa said:
we are red wine snobs- the only NC wine we currently like is Childers #3 red…
Califunny Sterling vineyard and NY Dr Constantine Frank wines are our favorite special wine.

Everyday is a Califunny Mark West Pinot Noir. We get a case plus 2 every two weeks…
Click to expand...

Yep, don’t understand a word you just said.

Us rednecks just make it in 5 gallon buckets 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
hp468 said:
We are allowed in family fields after they have been dug/picked. There’s always a slew that are good eatin size left behind. This past year we filled up 3 8’ truck beds and a ranger. Most get passed along to friends, family, and folks in a local church. Lots of work but we enjoy it.
Click to expand...
Have a friend who used to invite us out to his farm(s) to hunt and one time there was no hunting but plenty of sweet taters the mexicans had left after picking. We were throwing those up in the air like footballs and blasting them with 12ga's. He got tired of all the farming hassles and had no problem selling the lands to realestate developers.
 
Yep, NC is the #1 producer of sweet potatoes in the US. Covington is probably the variety that is grown most commercially. My son did his master's at NCSU, doing research on the Covington variety sweet potato. His research was paid for by the NC Sweet Potato Growers Assoc.

Most of their field trials, the potatoes had to be destroyed as they were subjected to "off list" chemical treatments, but his control plots were good to go. There were a couple of times he came home with his 4 Runner packed full of sweet potatoes.

My grandparents always grew sweet potatoes and actually preferred the smaller roots, which they referred to a poot roots.

This is from NCSU for curing sweet potatoes.
The first thing you will want to do after harvest is gently brush off any remaining soil, but do not wash them. The optimal conditions for curing sweet potatoes are a temperature of 85F, and 80-90% humidity with good ventilation for 4-14 days. These conditions are easily achieved in a greenhouse, but may be more difficult at home or school. Here are a few alternative curing methods that are suitable for small scale production.

  1. Milk crate: Place a single layer of sweet potatoes on the bottom of a milk crate. Use wooden dowels or sticks through the holes in the sides of the crate to build a base for a second layer a few inches above the first. Place another layer of sweet potatoes on the sticks. Cover with a damp towel and place in a warm, dry, shady place outside or in a garage. This setup allows good airflow, and provides a moist warm environment.
  2. Burlap bag: Place sweet potatoes in a single layer inside a burlap bag. Place a moist towel on top of the burlap bag and place in a warm, dry, shady place outside.
  3. Plastic bag: Poke several holes in a plastic grocery bag. Place a single layer of sweet potatoes in the bag and tie shut. Place in a sunny window or warm, dry, shady place outside.
Once cured, sweet potatoes should be stored in a cool dry place with good ventilation.
 
According to this webpage, sweet taters can be grown year round in NC. I thought collards could be but this says not. One of the grocery stores I haunt has an NC section. Have to go there soon to look for sweets.

www.thespruceeats.com

See What's in Season in North Carolina

Find great fresh, locally grown produce with this guide to North Carolina seasonal fruits & vegetables.
www.thespruceeats.com www.thespruceeats.com
 
nhusa said:
we are red wine snobs- the only NC wine we currently like is Childers #3 red…
Califunny Sterling vineyard and NY Dr Constantine Frank wines are our favorite special wine.

Everyday is a Califunny Mark West Pinot Noir. We get a case plus 2 every two weeks…
Click to expand...


My Fav from CA.


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Given that North Carolina is the biggest producer in the country (or it was), you would think they would be cheaper here. Does not seem to be the case.
 
Chuckman said:
Given that North Carolina is the biggest producer in the country (or it was), you would think they would be cheaper here. Does not seem to be the case.
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Must be the two way transportation cost…
one to send them to an out of state warehouse and another to bring them back into the state.

we used to ship parts from the US to China that were then shipped back to the US as part of a repair or spare parts kit.

the list transfer cost was increased each time and the customer got screwed until he figured out that he could just order the parts directly from the distributor for about 25%. It made our customers really respect us when it added months to the the delivery time and he had equipment down..
 
Sounds like the local planeing mill. Cut lumber comes in on semi's and goes thru the mill and then gets trucked back out. Why cant the orignal lumber mill plane it? There is not that much to building a planeing line. THis mill set idle 15-20 yrs. Now all a sudden lumber prices double and their back in business.
 
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