When one of the first freezes hit Hampton Roads this fall, neighbors Carey Byrd and James Hardin knew they needed to harvest the last of the vegetables in their backyards.

They had already pushed back pulling them from the ground, but with the oncoming cold front, it was now or never for the garden. It was already after dark, but the two Carrolton families went to work to harvest as much as they could before it got too cold.

"We were worried that we were going to lose all the crops that we had to frostbite," Hardin said. "Luckily, that didn't happen, so we decided: 'Alright, let's pull up everything we can.' So it's about 6 p.m., 40 degrees outside, pitch black, and we're just digging pulling stuff out. We had headlamps on and everything."

After some digging, there it was: a 17.2-pound sweet potato. Even in the dark, there was no mistaking. The vegetable, about the size of a soccer ball, had grown to nearly a sphere. Normal sweet potatoes are dwarfed by it.

"I didn't see it," Byrd said. "We really almost missed the big one. The leaves were covering it, so we really almost missed it."

Over the past couple of years, the families collaborated on their backyard garden. This year, they used raised beds and built a fence to protect crops from deer. They also used a layering technique using hay, and Byrd and Hardin credit compost made from Newport News' annual leaf collection program for larger-than-usual vegetables.

They had already grown larger sweet potatoes than those typically found at the grocery store, even when excluding the monster potato. Hardin said their harvesting had been fairly irregular, which meant some vegetables were probably left under the ground longer than recommended.

"I'm not sure how often you're supposed to harvest them. That's something we didn't really pay attention to," Byrd said. "So if there is a schedule, we'll have to look into that next year. (For some vegetables) there is a schedule -- like after three months, you should start pulling stuff out.

"We must have completely blown past that schedule, and maybe it should have been harvested a while ago."

The families rarely go without a meal that doesn't include at least one food grown from the garden. Byrd said she hopes more families will get involved with growing their own food. Since starting their garden, they have grown butternut squash, carrots, radishes, leafy greens, green beans, peas and others.

After the initial time and costs to get the garden together, Byrd said maintaining the vegetables is relatively easy, and having neighbors to share the work lightens the load.

"We don't spend a ton of money or time on it. It's more like a group project," Byrd said. "You know, the nice thing is doing it together. I didn't have the land, the space or the sunlight, and so we're just two neighbors coming together to do something that's really nice to encourage other people to garden if they can.

"I know people complain about the cost of gardening or the time, but it's been such a blessing for our families to do it together."

As for what's going to happen to the sweet potato, it's probably going to be eaten -- since the local fairs don't have sweet potato competitions, Byrd and Hardin said.