Harvest sweet potatoes in a growbag! This year is a bumper crop

I harvested sweet potatoes grown in a growbag on the balcony!

Two seedings were planted in a 40 liter bag. This year, in 2020 the harvest was totally 12 ; 3 large, 3 medium, 4 small and 2 extremely small! It is the best harvest in the last few years.

I planted seedings in June, and added fertilizer and soil in July. Then I harvested in mid October, 126 days after planting.

So, please see some photos of harvest. The roasted sweet potato was so delicious!

When the leaves turn yellow, it is a signal for harvesting. We do harvest on or after 120 days since planting. The sweet potatoes now look so imposing!

Cut off the leaves from the roots. It looks like a lot, but if you put them in a large plastic bag and let the air out, it will be a quite compact. You can throw away as burnable garbage.

After cutting off the leaves, the sweet potatoes look like this. The bag is so tight and is just about to burst.

Prepare a basin or bucket and dig while putting out the soil little by little from the top with a shovel and hands. Eventually, you can feel the existence of sweet potatoes. They are buried vertically, so dig them out like pulling up!

Hey, look the harvest!

Even the large ones are just the right size to be fitted on the grill of the gas stove. Leave them with the soil on, about one week to 10 days in somewhere cool and well-ventilated, so the water inside will be gradually removed and the sweetness will increase. If you leave them around one month, it will be even sweeter.

After one week, I simply roasted it. The roasted sweet potato is called “Yaki-imo” in Japan, it is the taste of autumn for Japanese.

After washing a sweet potato, put it into the grill of the gas stove where you bake fishes usually. and heat 10 minutes with medium heat. My grill is double-sided. Turn off the heat and leave it for 10 minutes. Stab with a toothpick and if it is still hard, heat a few minute more and leave it accordingly. Delicious Yaki-imo is ready!

After harvesting work was finished, I looked up at the sky, and I saw the rainbow! The weather was not good during the week but I was lucky that I could harvest on a sunny autumn day.

After harvesting the sweet potatoes, I grow strawberries on the same balcony. Sweet potatoes are from June to October, strawberries are from October to May. Just a right rotation.

The soil used for sweet potatoes can be recycled, after well dried outside in a bag, and screen.

Just like this, the balcony gardening continues every year!