Growing – Prepare the Plot

This year I started a new bed in the backyard for sweet potatoes. It’s good to rotate your crops so I didn’t want to plant them in the same spot every year. I want to walk through how I created a bed similar to last years, which was pretty successful so I just did it again (don’t reinvent the wheel…). So it’s a lot of hard work but only a few times. I do a method called Dig It Up & Flip It. This is where I stake out the area I want to turn into a bed and dig the shit out of it. (similar to “Double Digging”). This year I started the process in the Fall, by putting a giant pile of dead leaves in this area and just letting it sit and decompose and kill the grass over winter.

Learning opportunity! If I were to do this again, I would definitely recommend shredding or mowing over the leaves first. When left whole, they tend to bind together and not decompose as fast, and were harder to work into the soil later.

When spring arrives and the ground can be worked (similar to the about the time you should be starting the process of creating your slips (see here). Punch-dig all around the perimeter of your new bed, then section by section dig, pull up, and turn over. This upends the grass roots and turns the leaves under the soil. Then chop it up with the shovel and the hoe. This is hard work but you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment when your back and arms are sore.

Let that marinate a month or two, then go out and hoe it / mattock it / shovel it up near when you’re going to plant (mid-late May / early June). Add lots of compost and I add a couple bags of garden soil as well to amend all the clay. Here in Tennessee the soil is basically a clay brick. But lots of nutrients!

It’s important to loosen the soil as much as possible, so really dig it up. I’ve never yet tried growing sweet potatoes in poor conditions, but they do say it is possible and would be an interesting future experiment. Now you’re ready to plant some slips!

So, to summarize:

Make your bed. It’s nice to have a lookout dog as well.

Add compost and outline your bed with free bricks you got off Craigslist cuz u classy.

Yes! Of course if you already have a raised bed situation, this is an easier way. For these, every season just add some nice compost and/or a bit more garden soil to the bed and till in the spring to loosen it up. Form a nice mound and prepare to plant! On the next post I will outline what I planted where in my garden. We are lucky to have a huge backyard so I have both raised beds near the house and in-ground beds in the back.