Sweet Potatoes and Cast Iron Pots

I just did a search of my blog and was surprised to discover that I have never written anything about sweet potatoes, although we grow them every year.  Sweet potatoes "like" hot weather and we have found that they do well in our Oklahoma garden.  They can be grown in poor soils with little fertilizer and have few natural enemies.  However, we learned very early that they have to be protected from deer because deer love them and think of them as a delicacy.   

The first year we grew them, we grew them outside and they produced beautiful lush vines.  Then, Tom went out one morning to find all the leaves had been eaten and only nubs were left!  The next year, he had the brilliant idea to plant them in our hoophouse.  Since it is an enclosed structure, the deer will not go in there even though we roll up the edges and open the doors to help ventilate it.  It also gets very hot in there during the summer and, while the heat does not bother the sweet potatoes, nothing else will grow in there in the summer.

Here is a picture of some of the sweet potatoes we grew this past summer.

Sweet potatoes are very nutritious.  They are full of fiber, low in fat and have a whopping 14187 IU of Vitamin A.

Sometimes sweet potatoes are called "yams", but they are not yams.  Yams are primarily grown in Africa and are very different from sweet potatoes.  Sweet potatoes have broad leaves and are in the same family as the morning glory. Yams on the other hand, are members of the Lily family.  Also, note that sweet potatoes are not real potatoes.

I used the sweet potatoes in the above picture to cook in a beef roast, along with onions, carrots and potatoes.  Yes, there really is a roast under all those vegetables!

I wish I knew the history of the iron pot in the above picture.  I know it belonged to my grandfather, who passed it on to my mother, who passed it on to me.  But, I have no idea if "Papa" bought it new or what.  He was born in the late 1800s.

At any rate, I love it and use it a lot.  Unfortunately, the lid was lost before it came into my possession.  I've searched for lids to fit it, but it is a different size than the "standard" size iron pots made today and I have not been able to find a replacement.  So, I've had to make-do with a stainless steel lid from another pot.  It really does not fit, but it works.