Dont know which end of potatoe to start in water jar

Hi Ihave never planted sweet potatoes and have lots of questions but first I have to figure out what end of the tater goes in the jar ,can any one help me Please.
Tammy

Tammy, I usually cut a small piece off one end of the sweet potato then stick toothpicks in it so it will be held up in a glass. Then put the cut end in the water in the glass. Add water as needed and change it if it looks funky. Your slips will grow from the potato. You can then snap those off and plant or you can snap them off and root them in water first. Either way has worked well for me.

You should be able to see what I'm talking about in this picture;o)

Edited because I can't spell tonight.

This message was edited Apr 15, 2010 8:58 PM

Close up...

So you break the shoots off of the potato to plant them? Someone gave me a sprouted sweet potato last year, in a jar like yours, and told me to just plant the whole bit in a container. It died. :( I dearly love sweet potatoes and would like to try again sometime!

Yup - each individual shoot is what is called a slip. Some people just plant them unrooted. If I have time I root them in water first. It only takes a few days. I think the rooted ones take off faster once you plant them in the dirt, but I'm relying on memory as I never recorded any official data - lol... Maybe this year I will do an experiment - rooted vs unrooted.

They do sprout from the end attached to the plant. The root end is fairly obvious unless the potato has been trimmed. The slips are pulled off when they reach approximately 6 inches in lenght and transplanted. Rooting the slips is optional. I don't.

Next question. I just bought some Black Beauty and Tri-Color sweet potato plants from the local hardware store. I'm assuming these are purely ornamental, and won't form any kind of edible tuber, right? Or are they multi-taskers, and look cool in addition to being real edible veggies? LOL

Ornamentals are edible, but are usually very poor quality. Pretty sure you will not enjoy eating them.

thanks so much for your responces I am very hopefull that I can do this. but I have afew more questions , Farmerdill my momma droped me one to many times on my head so I have to have things dummied down for me to understand, so is it the end with the point that sticks is the water? also Locakelly, how long does it take to get slips . thanks u all for the pictures it really helps.
I dont have any roots or slips yet but the are starting I hope I can get them in the ground in time.

when I go to plant these should I use manure in with the soil?

Tammy, I'm not sure of your zone, but when I lived back in NE in zone 5, we didn't put out sweet potatoes till the end of May or early June. You might want to confirm that, cause they sure don't handle cold well at all here.

They grow all through our hot hot hot summers here, so the warmer the better when you plant them out...

it is still in the fortys here at night so I will take your advice and wait. when I go to plant how far apart should I set the slips from each other. Indianas weather is A lot like kentucky , Arizona sounds wounderful for gardeners.

We can grow year round here, though some things will need protection in the summer from the blazing sun. You need to provide shade either naturally (trees and such) or artifically - we use a shade structure/shade cloth that we built.

I garden in the square foot method and plant 1 slip/sq ft. The vines spread far and the roots do as well. That seems to work for me and gives adequate room for the tubers to develop.

That was my spacing note too...1 per square foot. I'll try to remember to check on the planting temp. I'm thinking Sw Pot need over 55* nights, then in the fall, you have to leave them out as late as possible to get bigger, but if they get touched with frost, it will affect the flavor. But don't let any of that scare you off, they are really easy to grow.

thanks for the responces just out of curiosity how deep do sweet potaes grow and on the average how many potatoes do one slip produce ?

Depending on size usually between 6 and 12. They extend down at an angle from the main vine. The attached end will be close to the surface, but they can extend down a foot.

do they like a lot of water or can they do ok in dry spells

Hey Kelly!
I have an entire unplanted raised bed, 4x8. Problem is that it's fairly shaded, and doesn't get much direct sunlight (trees overhead -- duh...)

It's the middle of my spring season and I don't have a clue what to put in that bed at this point, and I need suggestions, please. I was thinking of just filling it with sweetie slips and letting em take over. Would they be finished by the time I want to plant cole crop seedlings (lettuce, greens, turnips, beets, carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, & cabbages) starting mid-August?

Or, should I just leave it empty til then in preparation for my fall planting in mid-August? It's been filled with a veggie growers blend from a local company since last September...duh.....

Linda

Girl- I am in a similar situation, but I could not help but wonder if your mid-August plant time for lettuce is a bit agressive. I was thinking more along the lines of mid-September. Have you planted on this schedule before? If so, that's great because that means I will do it too! Anyway, that was all I had to add...

hummingtammy - I don't think they need any more water than your average veggie (1"/week). I garden in raised beds in the desert so I have to water more often than you would.

Hiya Linda! You could try the sweeties in that empty bed. They like heat. They may do alright for you in that bed with partial sun. Give it a shot. I would say for good size taters you need to give them about 120 days. Although last year the ones I planted the first of June and harvested the first of October had many many baby tubers and had I not needed the space I would have had more taters. I have slips rooted I hope to get planted out tomorrow night as our weather is cooling into the 70s on Wednesday. I also have some Chiltepins to transplant.

hello all , I have slips now on my taters and am just waiting for them to grow a little bit more then I can plant them. the rest of my garden is in I am afraid to plant the slips yet it got dow to about 40 last night so I am gonnna wait till it warms up a little more , I wonder if I should till the space they are going in again ,can you over till?