Sweet potatoes like warm soil. We usually wait until June to plant them. Often we plant them when we take the peas out as a way to maximize our garden space.
Sweet potatoes are grown from plants. You can purchase plants at a garden center or online. You an also grow your own plants. You will need a firm healthy sweet potato. If the sweet potato is starting to sprout, you have a head start. I assume that most grocery store sweet potatoes are treated with an anti-sprouting chemical. Look for organic sweet potatoes or get from a gardening friend. My sweet potatoes came from my mom and a friend. I don't know what variety they are but both of them had excellent sweet potato crops last year and they kept very well all winter. Sounds like traits I want to encourage!
Place the sweet potato in a jar of water. You want to submerse most of the sweet potato while allowing a couple inches above water. One of my sweet potatoes was so large it couldn't fit well in the jar. Change the water occasionally to keep from molding. Place in sunlight. Soon the sweet potato will send out sprouts, or slips.
When the sprouts are four to five inches long, pull them off the sweet potato. The sweet potato will grow more sprouts.
Place the sprouts in water. You can place a bunch of sprouts in the same jar. They will quickly grow roots.
When the sprout is well rooted, plant on a hill of soil about ten inches high. Keep the plants well watered while the roots are being established. We like to mulch the hill to keep back the weeds as the sweet potato grows.
While sweet potatoes can't be planted too early because they hate cold weather, they also can't be planted too late. My aunt, who has grown sweet potatoes to sell for years, says to plant on July 4 at the very latest in our area of PA. Sweet potatoes need several months of growing time before the first frost to form tubers.
I think I started my sweet potato plants too late. I didn't start them until May. I only have half my row planted now and my other sprouts are still rooting. Some of the ones I've planted seem to be dying and I probably didn't give them enough time to root. Next year I want to start the plants in March or April so they are well rooted by the beginning of June. One more task to add that to my early spring gardening list. Maybe having this written here will help me remember.
My husband just read an article on growing sweet potatoes at Mother Earth News that he found helpful.
Do you have any other hints on growing sweet potatoes?
I just plant a whole sweet potato and don't worry with the slips. Last year I planted 5 or 6 potatoes and got a bushel of sweet potatoes in return. I really don't know if the way I did it was correct or not but it worked well for me. Sherri
ReplyDeleteThanks! Saving this one for next year. ~Liz
ReplyDeleteSherri -
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered if that would work. Sounds like you had a great return on the investment. One thing I like about sweet potatoes is that you can save a potato from year to year and never need to buy new seed.
Gina
Yeh we usually throw our green scraps onto the soil, like compost. One year we put sweet potato skins out and the plant grew up aswell. I do the same for potatoes, ones that havent been used and start eye-ing, I plant and a couple of months later I get wonderful "new" potatoes..
ReplyDeleteMy "garden counselor", an 89 year old sister in our church, always starts her sweet potatoes on her birthday, March 5th. She is a wealth of garden information even tho she isn't gardening any more.
ReplyDeleteWhat I appreciate the most about this post Gina is that you actually say what to do after they sprouted. I have yet to see one place- even in The Backyard Homestead, whose method I'm trying now, follow the process through to the ground.
ReplyDeleteI tried a water method last year that had chunks suspended in water, and the mold was uncontrollable. Probably because they were chunks. I'd be interested to know how many slips total you end up with off those 3 potatoes.
Great post- Thanks!!
Thank you Gina!!
ReplyDeleteThe post answered a lot of questions! Appreciate the time you took sharing!!
JoAnn
Try keeping plants in moist cocopeat;
ReplyDeleteI think it is easier than water- No mold
I am so going to try this indoors very soon.. looks pretty easy and love growing sweet potatoes outdoors. thanks so much for the information you have provided.. I was doing a search to get the specifics and I like that you added photos to show them sprouting..
ReplyDeleteWhat is Cocopeat?
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea!
ReplyDeleteI am trying it this year, and I hope it isn't too late. I actually tried growing them right on the soil from potato seeds, and they did pretty well until someone in my community garden decided to weed wack everything by the end of the season. I lost all of my potatoes.
Finger crossed :)
All you need to grow sweet potatoes are the eyes. Not sure if grocery store yams will work or if they've been treated. Just cut the sweet potato so there are eyes in each piece. Plant and tend.
ReplyDelete