The end of the fall growing season is upon us which means lots of harvesting! Not only are the fall crops ready, but it is also time to dig up the sweet potatoes that were planted months ago. Last week at Scuola Vita Nuova, we celebrated the end of the season by having a harvest party where we gathered lettuces, peppers, and tomatoes to make a salad and dug up over 100 sweet potatoes!

For months SVN students of all ages have been tending to the garden by weeding, watering, removing pests, and harvesting. Each week in the garden they would check on the potatoes and count down the number of days until they could be harvested!

In our region potatoes are planted in early summer (mid-late May) and take about 90-120 days to mature. Sweet potatoes are sensitive to frost and so they should be planted after any threat of a late spring frost and harvested before the first winter frost (typically the first week of November).

Digging for potatoes is one of my favorite parts of gardening. I look forward to getting a little muddy and digging for these hidden treasures. Lucky for me, the students at SVN were equally excited! Once we started digging for the potatoes, one student happily shouted, “It’s like digging for gold!” Each student dug up a few sweet potatoes and together there were over one hundred!

Students at SVN are looking forward to taking their bountiful harvest home and making baked sweet potatoes and sweet potato fries. I asked our KCCG Chef in Residence, Sharon, about her favorite sweet potato recipes and she shared that Moroccan Sweet Potato Salad, Spicy Sweet Potato Soup, and Celery, Sweet Potato & Apple Salad are some of her go-to recipes during the sweet potato harvest season. What will you make with your sweet potatoes?