Harvesting Sweet Potatoes from a Straw Bale Garden

if you remember back at the beginning of the summer we tried something just a little bit different here at prep setters and that was we put the garden in in straw bales rather than in the ground and we did an episode all on that you can check it out if you like but the summer is gone winter is almost here and it's time to get everything that hasn't been harvested it's time to bring it all inside and the last few things I've got left are just a few of the clio to yellow tomatoes that one of you viewers sent me thank you so much Robert Nick you stand in Tennessee but I want to show the rest of you exactly how we harvested the sweet potatoes from some of the straw bales that we planted them in what a cool process let's take a look so if you recall this all started back in the spring when I put three straw bales here in the shape of an L and I put in the top of each one of them about three start 'lets that I had begun from actually two year old sweet potatoes at that time that had all shriveled up and given their lives I hadn't gotten around to eating them because I had had such a wild harvest every year for the past several years but in those from those two year old sweet potatoes I had cold the little start 'lets and got them in water until they rooted and then I put them in the top of these straw bales I used maybe at the very most a cup of actual soil but all of the rest was just straw bale that you see here and these were slow to take off slower than they would have been if they were in the ground but once they did they were prolific and they grew like crazy covering the straw bales covering the ground around them covering even the little trellis I put up to hold some of them what I didn't account for was that there would be deer that I just could not keep away but the deer have come in and happily eaten off as much of the foilage as they could possibly get their mouths on so you would think that these would die but they have stayed absolutely healthy clear up here until the time when it's almost ready for the first frost so I'm going to show you how here at the bottom these hay bales have just compacted and disintegrated and are all easily torn apart by hand but I will clip the blue twine on them and give them a little push here to see just what they reveal inside and it is wonderful it's sort of like a mix between Easter and Christmas because I'm finding little Christmas gifts but it's almost like an Easter egg hunt as I dig through the straw and the hay and there it is another wonderful little orange package waiting for me to pull it out and put it in my harvest basket for the winter so I'll just go through here and find some have lots and lots of little room some some are very secure but most of them are super easy to just pull right out I don't have to even use a shovel or a spade or anything the straw falls apart and reveals them absolutely super easily so this is there's so much fun some of them are the size of small children some of them are just little miniatures and even the roots that are kind of thick those are all edible and I've enjoyed dicing those up real small and throwing them in soups and such but we'll get out every bit of this that we can and looks to me like there are a couple of these that have even grown down into the soil below the straw bales just one or two and of course you'll notice that everywhere this vine has hit the ground around the straw bales if it's allowed to sit there for a very long time it will make its own roots and each root goes and then eventually turns into another little sweet potato to harvest and find I'll probably be finding them for the next month as I come out here into the garden area we're not going to let any part of this go to waste we're going to make sure that we get the greens salvaged as well so I've got a lot of them thrown over into this pile at the side every bit of the greenery that the deer have not eaten I get to eat so I can't wait to put that together but first we'll finish with these sweet potatoes so I didn't even harvest all three bales this amount of sweet potatoes came out of only two bales and I had enough to show you I thought I'll just stop right there and I'll get the rest of them when we're done with the episode but I wanted to show you a couple of my favorites a lot of them are the size of small babies it's just incredible and I'm guessing here because this Longaberger back basket was so heavy with them it's probably somewhere between 20 and 30 pounds I didn't even want to lift the basket by its handle because I thought it might break some of them came out in different unique shapes but not so much as they do when they're in the ground these were a lot closer to the standards shape that you would expect out of a sweet potato but this one with the curly tail was one of my favorites so I thought I would just save it for a minute and show you before I have to tear the tail of it off but the last thing that we're going to do which I hope you remember from other previous episodes is that we're not going to let any of this go to waste so these all sweet potatoes need to sit for a few days to get really nice and sweet and it helps all of their little wounds to kind of dry up so that they can stand the wait ahead of them before I get to all of them to eat across the winter time but I'm also going to harvest all of the wonderful leaves that the deers did not eat they have left me a few of the leaves and whether they are giant big ones or little tiny fresh ones that are starting to grow I'm going to harvest all of those off put them in this little basket take them inside and wash them up and then I'm gonna spread them over my food dehydrator trays and put them in there overnight they don't take very long because there's not a whole lot of moisture in the leaves but by about this time tomorrow they'll be ready for me to take out of the food dehydrator and then grind up into that superfood powder that I've talked to you about that I make with everything I can you will be in awe of how much nutrition is in the greens alone of sweet potatoes in fact some places just eat them for the greens they don't even eat the the potatoes themselves because the greens are so high in nutrition one of the things I like is that they're high in lutein so they're excellent for my eye health but they have high amounts of iron and manganese and a and B and C I'm going to actually put a link down below this so make sure you look in the description below this video if you're watching it on youtube I want you to see a report that just talks specifically about the greens only and how incredibly nutritious they are for your health you can cook them like spinach you can throw them in your salads you can make them into anything from soups and chutneys and you can make them into pesto there are an incredible number of ways to fix these and you get creative and then share with us what your way is so there you have it I love sweet potatoes and you know that they're my highly most highly recommended garden vegetable for everyone of us to be growing no matter what zone were in and no matter what kind of excuses we have or soil we have to work with or how poorly we water our plants these sweet potatoes seem to be the most forgiving and I hope you'll take the time to look at our episodes that we've done dedicated just to them because there is so much incredible nutrition to have for your family in these all right but now it's your turn I hope you'll share this video with someone you love if you haven't subscribed already please do and let us know who you are below I love hearing your stories so if you have a story or a memory that you want to share that has anything to do with this content of this episode will you share it below so we can all enjoy it with you and now before next week when we meet again well you find someone who looks particularly more torn and a little bit downtrodden and will you make it a point to intentionally bless them today thank you and we'll see you next time [Music] hey there before you go let me share this quick word out of the Book of Luke in the Holy Bible chapter 12 verse 48 it says this everyone to whom much was given of him much will be required and from him to whom they entrusted much they will demand more hope you'll remember that and go spread the word [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: PREPSTEADERS

Views: 85,857

Keywords: Survival, Homesteading, Prepping, Preppers, prepsteaders, wisdom creek, sweet Potato, Garden, Straw bale garden, Sweet Potato Slips, Superfoods

Id: D5s8akb9_pU

Length: 9min 46sec (586 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2019