Digging up Sweet Potato Vines

I am in zone 5B. Do I need to dig up the roots of my Sweet Potato Vines? If I do how do I store them? I divided up my one plant and now have 5 plants. I don't want to root them inside. Will they just dry up?

Just before the first hard freeze, dig them up. Remove all vines and hairy roots and brush off the soil and wrap each one, loosely, in newspaper. Put in a box or bag, making sure air can circulate and that none of them touch. (The newspaper should prevent that.) Store them in a place where they won't be exposed to temps below 38 degrees all winter but preferably where it's not too warm. They will begin to put out slips in mid to late spring. You can plant them in pots early spring if you can keep them away from freezing temps, or in the ground when the ground temps are warming up.

Dp, I can put them in my 2nd bedroom that I don't heat but there is not air circulating in it. Should I put a fan in there? Is that good enough?

That sounds perfect. There is no chance the tubers would freeze in that room, I would think. You might unwrap them every 4 or 6 weeks to make sure none are rotting. They would need to be removed. That is very unlikely to happen.
You are going to be so proud of yourself next year when you have all those tubers to plant. As they sprout, you can take cuttings and start new plants. S potatoes are about the easiest thing there is to grow from cuttings. Start them in POTTING MIX, not water. Water propagation is never as good as using potting soil/mix.
Next spring if you have very large tubers you can cut them in half, let them DRY in the open air for about a week to let the wounds heal, then you will have twice as many to plant.

You said to start them in potting mix. When do I do that? And keep them in the house?

Boil or bake them, then add brown sugar and a little bit of butter ;-)

Does a Blackie Sweet Potato Vine grow regular sweet potatoes?

I haven't tried them myself but I've heard that they can be eaten.

There are over 15 varieties of ornamental sweet potatoes, and all are real sweet potatoes. However, they were picked out because of their pretty foliage and not the quality of the tuber for eating. Some have long, skinny tubers, and others have shorter fatter ones. There's no reason not to eat them, except if you want to plant them to get ornamental vines you can't eat your cake and have it too. Most don't have much flavor. If you want a good eating sweet potato it's best to buy ones at the market. They will grow you a vine just like the ornamental kind if you plant them, but they aren't as fancy. If you're old enough to remember, women used to put one part way in a jar of water, let it sprout vines, and grow it in the house, usually in the kitchen on a window sill. They're right pretty.
I've rooted a lot of slips and planted them in containers out back this growing season. Probably 8 varieties from light red to almost black. Various leaf shapes. These are strictly for saving the tubers for next spring. I am in Master Gardeners. We have a plant sale once a year and I'm going to propagate a lot of these for the sale.
There is a good tutorial on Dave's on how to start slips with a tuber in water in a container like Tupperware during the late winter. That way you get a head start on spring. I did it this past winter and it was fun. If you can't find it doing a search I'll try to find and post where it is.

I agree that buying sweet potatoes is a better taste choice.

A sweet potato in a container of water was the very first plant I ever grew. I still have the pretty container right next to me as I type. Fond memories.

Pirl, thanks for sharing that. I remember many homes where sweet potato vines were draped along the walls. There was a restaurant that had them everywhere. They were cheap and easy to grow. I think that was before Devil's Ivy came along as a popular indoor vine.

Was Devil's Ivy philodendron?

The name used to be pothos. I'm not sure what the botanical name is now. Down here in the South it was the only "ivy" except for English ivy. People didn't know what philodendrons were except there were a few of the huge monsteras- split-leaf- here and there. The "devil's ivy" is a lighter shade of green than philo. and usually variegated.

Right! I have the golden pothos on my porch. The philodendron was all green, right?

I've never seen a variegated philodendron, although there could be one. Aren't pothos leaves wider and bigger overall than the vining philo? I like both, but for some reason hardly anybody here grows philo.
Did you know that if pothos is allowed to climb the leaves get much larger?

Yes, I put some cuttings outside early one year - probably mid May - and they grew huge! Pothos are (to me) more heart shaped, shiny and prettier due to the variegation. My mom grew both on the interior front porches we had and she had them trained above windows.

Right- more SHINY. Philo leaves have almost a matte finish. I think there is a solid green pothos, or maybe that is just when they don't get enough light they have more green to them.

Pothos and the vining philodendron's ( Syngoniums) will grow outdoors here in a really shaded location.

I just re-did a garden under an exterior stairway and added variegated Pothos (the white/marbled one) and some very cool new Syngonium's with PINK leaves. (New to me, at least...) I'd never seen these before and found them at a 99 cent store ...(but they were $2.50 each...go figya...) they make a good low ground cover for shade and will climb if there's something for them to attach themselves to.

Even here the pothos wants dappled shade (and so do I).

If you want to see how to bed sweet potatoes, come see me this spring. The biggest sweet potatoe grower in the U.S. is right up the road from me. He beds about 80 acres to supplie his slips. Puts them in the ground and covers them with clear plastic and throws dirt over the edge of the plastic to keep out air. Then he forgets them until the weather gets warm enough not to frost. Takes up the plastic and pulls the slips and plants them. No roots no nothing. They root right in the ground. If it turns dry he waters them. Also cuts off most of the foliage before he plants. When I was a kid we used to take a pointed stick and poke a hole in the ground, put in a slip and take our heel and mash the dirt tight around it.

So what is a slip?

A piece of the potato with an eye.

Most people call a sprout from a sweet potato a slip. Sweet potatoes don't have eyes like Irish potatoes do.

So if you take a piece of sweet potato with an eye, plant it, it becomes a whole potato? Can you do that with white potatoes also?

You have to get a sweet potato to sprout first before you plant it? How?

This message was edited Aug 29, 2009 8:30 AM

The slip grows and creates sweet potatoes via the vines.

You just look for growing eyes. If you leave an untreated sweet potato out at room temperature you should get sprouts. Many people buy slips for all kinds of potatoes.

You can just put the sweet potatoe in the ground and cover it. It will begin to send up sprouts. When they are about a foot tall you just pull them out of the potatoe and plant them. These are called slips. To plant Irish potatoes, you cut off an eye leaving a good part of the potatoe attached to it. The eye is a growth but and is what sprouts. You plant the eye about an inch and one half deep. The spout feeds off the portion of potato you leave with it until it can put down roots. While you can plant any potatoe eye it is best to buy seed potatoes if you want a good harvest. Eyes planted off the potatoes you buy in the store usually don't make to good.

By the way, when you pull up your sweet potatoe vines and harvest the tubers, don't wash them. This will make them rot. Just brush off the soil and put them in a cool dry place. They store real good.

Thanks, for all the info. I put it with the info I copied earlier.

I cut that one sweet potato vine I had into 5 plants. They sure are hardy and a couple are covering my other flowers! However, the color looks good next to my Lamb's Ears which are hardy also. I saved all the seeds but can't imagine using any of them.

What seeds?
I used to wash my tubers before storing them, and they didn't rot- they did just fine. But I found out it wasn't necessary so quit doing it.
If you do wash them, they need to dry completely before you store them. Better still, DON'T wash them.

My Lamb's Ear seeds! Not the tubers.

I was wondering about the seeds as well!

lol Sometimes I don't clearly say what I mean!

And then you get to be my age and say clearly what you don't mean!

lol Now pirl, how old are you?

Two weeks younger than Jim!

LOL Now, how old does that make me!

Very young. A mere child!

Well, aren't you a sweet one!!

A very young person who kills verbascum but still young! Ha! :-)

I know!!! I pulled the sweet potato vines over Stuby so I don't have to think about him!