How do you grow sweet potatoes??????

I just can't seem to have any luck growing these. Any help would be appreciated.

BADLY!!!!!

I grew one in a pot, I put it hanging when the sprouts grew so fast and long. It was very nice plant :) Then the main tuber died but it had grown little ones! :) I don't like the taste of the tubers but it makes a nice indoorplant here..

JCF...you seem to have good luck with your regular taters. Have you been doing the sweetpotatoes the same way? (as far as hilling and feeding?)
I've had a good sweetpotato crop one yr by making a good-sized furrow and putting in lots of compost/humus (it is rare that I have that much to work with tho). Sweetpotatoes like a nice loose soil. I have also grown them in the red clay w/out the addition of compost but I really shouldn't compare the two crops because I was really overtaken with weeds that yr due to neglect on my part.
What I'd recommend is to make a furrow (in April here in NC, zone 7) and let it warm up a bit. If you have anything to throw in (humus, or rotted manure<--unlike regular spuds sweetpotatoes enjoy a bit more nitrogen) then do so and hill up your row into a nice ridge, 8 or 10 inches high if possible...I'd shoot for 10. When the ground and air temps are definitely warm and no frost is expected (remember, these babies are related to the morning glory family and hate frost) then stick your starts a good 4 inches down in the ridge. I've placed them about every 8 inches apart but have seen where some folks space them 12. Water them in good. (It helps to make a hole with a stick, set your plants in then pour water in the hole to settle the dirt around the plant. That will also give it a good amount of water where it needs it.)
If you can keep your ridges weedfree for a few weeks that is good. When the vines start roaming they'll help control the weeds.
Here in our area it's often said (and I've witnessed it to be true) that the tubers won't gain any size till September so don't go looking for any success before then.
Altho they thrive in drought and heat (I LOVE a plant like that!!) it wouldn't hurt to spray them w/fish emulsion or the like every couple of wks during the growing season, especially if you didn't put in very much compost/humus/manure.
Keep us posted on what you decide and let us know, k?

horseshoe, i am going to try your method will let you know what happens

I remember seeing a tv program called Gardening Naturally where Eliot Coleman was growing sweet potatoes in Maine using a hilled up ridge covered with black plastic. He made an x and planted the start through the hole. Whatever variety he grew didn't do so well but someone had advised him to try Beaureguard so he was going to try that the year after. Possibly trying more than one variety would give you a good idea of what will grow well in your area. I really liked that program, I learned a lot of good things from it, and now HGTV doesn't carry it anymore, at least not when I am awake.

This message was edited Sunday, Jan 20th 4:34 PM

Sweet potatoes?

They make a superb indoor vine. I dunked a sweet potato I'd bought from a supermarket in a tub of damp sand, and left it in a warm place for a month. When I came back, it had grown lots of little shoots.

I plonked (sorry, a British term) three shoots in a big tub of home-made compost mixed with good soil, stuck a three-cane-trellis on top and watered regularly.

It seems, you shouldn't feed sweet potatoes. (You get all vine and no tuber, that way.) But they need lots of water.

I put the tub in my conservatory and twined the vines all over the back wall.

Result: several mealfuls of sweet potato roots.

Alas, my family doesn't like sweet potatoes. But the idea is great, if you simply want a wall-cover plant. Grown indoors.

Next year, I'll try them outdoors - grown up our South-facing house wall. In zone 8 in the UK, it's iffy, but - as we don't like the wretched things anyway - what can we lose?

JOHN YEOMAN
The Village Guild