In the weeks leading up to this newsletter, I knew exactly what I wanted to feature–our new O’Henry sweet potatoes. O’Henry taters are a white-skinned, white-fleshed variety with a dry, starchy interior great for roasting. They’re part of our 2017 push to grow more unusual varieties, and we planted about 100′ to complement our 600′ of Covingtons.
Here’s the thing though–most of the sweet potatoes I dug from that 100′ section don’t look like the O’Henry potato. The white skin we expected to find is as pink as a pig (see left).
There’s a chance that our source for sweet potato plants, Mr. Eugene Martin, sold us the wrong type of slip. That’s the most likely explanation and one we hope to confirm after a call to the Martin household. Alternatively, there could be something about the soil conditions this season that turned the O’Henry potatoes pink? That’s just a working theory without any basis in science–I couldn’t even confirm it using Google. Whatever they are, here’s hoping they’re tasty!