For curing Sweet Potatoes, remember that 80 degrees with high humidity is the ideal, but not a exact requirement. In order to store them in the cool you need to time your harvest to that time of the year that is cooling off in your region. Otherwise your are trying to cure them in 90-100 degree weather or if too late in the year, 30-50 degree weather. I harvest mine when the weather is starting to change in October (NE Louisiana), when some days are in the low to mid 80s. After you have dug them up, DO NOT wash them. This removes healthy bacteria and opens them up to fungus decay. Let them dry outside under a shed (out of the sun and rain) for several days. This helps get them dry. Then transfer them to a storage room or a room in your house that stays around 80 degrees or fluctuates in the 60-90 degree range (I keep mine in an outside storage room spread out on racks or on the floor). If you mist stack them, try not to stack them more than two deep, as their skin contact slows the drying process and promotes fungus growth. For humidity I keep a couple of five gallon buckets of water with wet towels around the edge of them or hung up above them. Saturate the towels every day. The evaporation will add humidity to the room. The curing process may take ten days or it may take 30 depending on your situation. When the skins are no longer easily scraped off, they are cured. By then the weather will be cooler and I keep them in the same storage room (with NO water or wet towels). My winters here are mild, but the temperature in my storage room varies from 75-30 degrees throughout the winter, and mine store fine for 6-8 months. I have repeated this process for many years. Remember, our ancestors grew and stored these potatoes with very little temperature and humidity control, and they did fine. Regarding the question of having great looking vines but few potatoes, first I would get a good soil test done, but as they were grown in a raised bed, too much Nitrogen may be the problem, as excess N will tend to put more growth into the vines than the roots. Same thing goes for peas. I hope this helps. Happy gardening.

We have 1/4 acre garden. It's a major amount of work. So we cut corners where we can to save time. I start sweet potatoes in March, 60 days ahead of planting. I pick out tubers from last years harvest, usually medium size, although this is a good way to use small ones that are still good. I stick 3 toothpicks around the sides and suspend the tubers vertically in a jar (like pints) of water, halfway in and halfway out of the water. In a few days, the tubers will start to sprout roots and slips. When the slips have 4 leaves, clip them off and put them in another jar of water 1/2 full. The slips will begin to grow roots, when the single roots start to have small branches on them, take them out of the water and plant them in dirt in a container. I use tapered slick "dixe" cups, because you do not need drainage holes (no mess) and the slick cups make getting the plants out easy. I reuse the cups as long as they aren't severely broken. For the last plants, I just plant the whole tuber. In the garden, I hill up two ridges 3 to 4 feet apart and as long as the number of plants. I usually plant 50 plants, each plant about 16" apart. Water well as needed, if you get twisted curly tubers, that usually means not enough water. I usually harvest in late September (SW Missouri) with a potato fork. After the weather turns cool, they don't grow much, and in October sometimes the mice have a tendency to munch on the tubers, then the garden snakes follow and munch on the mice, and then it makes for fun digging, but hey the snakes are doing their job. I really like the variety that I grow, I do not know what it is, my mom started growing it 30 years ago, after trying several different varieties, and we still got it. It's "best" characteristics is good size, high production, great taste, fine grain and the tubers grow underneath the original plant. Nothing more frustrating than digging taters that are all over the place. Production is usually 10-12, 5 gallon buckets. After harvest, I spread them out on the lawn and hose the dirt off them. I let them dry and put them into paper sacks and then into the big pantry in the game room. Winter temperatures there are probably in the 65-70 degree range. They keep until the following year, and then we start all over again.

We grew some sweet potatoes for the first time this year. They grew really well and we had three very large single ones but the rest were in a huge tangle wrapped around each other and some very hilarious shapes. Do you know what we did wrong? They still tasted delicious by the way! Best wished , Liz Bean

This is the 3rd year that I have grown sweet potatoes. In the past, If I plant outside of our fenced garden area, the vines have been eaten by deer, so this year I only grew them inside the fenced area. They were doing great through the end of August. The we had a lack of rain and the leaves were getting eaten to the vine (I believe it is squirrels that can get into the fenced area). By Sept 20 or so, I had a large raised bed of leafless green vines. It's now early October and I usually wait another 3-4 weeks to harvest.
Questions:
1) Any suggestions on avoiding further damage? Is it worth the energy to put netting over the bed - or some other deterrent?
2) Should I go ahead and harvest now? or wait until right before harvest
3) Any recommendations for next year. The squirrels also ate quite a few tomatoes this summer.

Where Could I Found Selected And Improved Seedlings?

My sweet potatoes vines are running all over the garden. They are green But the leaves have a few eaten areas on them. Is it okay to spray them with seven spray?

Will sweet potato vines survive in temperatures of 100 degrees or more. I don't know if I should put up a sun screen for them. Live in Phoenix, Az.