Compost yields results
By Brandy Nance
Originally published 06:00 a.m., November 22, 2007
Updated 02:36 p.m., November 21, 2007
Kathy and Bill Tidwell know how to grow sweet potatoes. They harvested more than 175 pounds of sweet potatoes from three hills. And one of those potatoes weighed in at 24 pounds.
The 24-pound sweet potato is the biggest the Tidwells have ever grown, Kathy Tidwell said.
She said the secret to growing large sweet potatoes is to have good compost and good old-fashioned farm fertilizer.
“We did mulch them heavily with just plain prairie hay,” Tidwell said, adding that they used six to eight inches of prairie hay. “It keeps the temperature even, plus it retains more moisture in the ground and keeps weeds from growing in the vines.”
The Tidwells efforts were successful.
“There were lots of them between five and nine pounds,” Tidwell said. “Which is inconvenient because they’re too big to use at one meal.”
So what are the Tidwells going to do with their giant sweet potato?
“One of these days I’ll put it in the oven and bake it and make pies and everything else,” Kathy Tidwell said.