sweet potato question, never have grown them

what zones will sweet potatoes grow in, how long do they take to produce edible tubers?

I've taken a raw chunk from last night's dinner and hope to have it grow slips, if nothing else, it'll be compost. Eyes will become 'slips'?

Thanks in advance.

I can grow a dandy red or white 'regular' spud with no trouble. Gonna try some blue ones this year in addition to the sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are roots, not tubers like Irish potatoes. The easiet way to start a few is to place a whole potato half submerged in a container of water. They do require a warm environment. The earliest cultivars can make in 90 days from transplanting, some can take 130 days or more. http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/veggies/sweetpotato1.html

thanks for your response, I'm now thinking of them like a dahlia, fleshy roots..... I'll rethink the 'bits' and might sacrifice a couple whole ones that are in the fridge as 'seed' sweet potatoes.... let them warm up

another garden experiment!

Remember one baking size sweet potatoe can give you a dozen or two slips. Many cultivars have a lot of vine and are space hogs.The bunching types are a little more manageable (short stubby vines) where space is a premium.

I bought a bag of Yucon Gold at the grocery store and let them sprout and are putting them out now. Also have some russet potatoes done the same way.

I plan to just put them under a heavy mulch touching the ground to root and then produce above the ground under the mulch.

Have you ever tried this and, if so, what were your results?

Have a blessed and cheerful day.

Cordially,
Carl Walker

my seed potatoes are the ones that have sprouted in the bag while waiting to be eaten, lol.

once they sprout (and now since it's too early to plant them out yet) I put them in the basement on the cement floor, covered from the light(cool, but not refridgerator cold) until I want them.

The larger spuds I'll cut into chunks, each piece with a couple of eyes.

I even have a couple pound bag of baby 'gourmet' potatoes on the 'past their date' sale table from the grocery store. I always look to the 'reduced produce bin' for just that purpose, my seed stock. In this bag are a dozen or so purple/blue potatoes that are eyeing up nicely.

Make sure your mulch is deep enough to prevent any sunlight from reaching the growing potatoe crop. Any bit of sun on them will cause them to go green and be inedible.

There's nothing like a new baby potatoes steamed, add a bit of freshly ground black pepper and a dab o' butter........yummmmmmm

" The easiet way to start a few is to place a whole potato half submerged in a container of water. "

Okay, stupid question time...Then what? I keep reading things like "take the slips and plant". Do you break them off, cut them off with a chunk of potato, or ?? Plant them like regular potaotes? I'd love to try it, and have a candidate or two in my kitchen...
Thanks, Margo

Irish potatoes are kin to tomatoes and grow a similar plant under similar conditions. Sweet potatoes are like perennial morning glories. Totally different growing conditions.

They are are a hot weather plant, so after the ground is nice and warm, pull the slips off the potato, stick 2/3 of the plant deep into nice soft soil. You can use a roow spacing of 48 inches, with a planting interval of 18 inches. Remember that " bunching" varieties run 3- 4 fot vines. Regular sweet potatoes can run 6-10 ft.

Don't forget to water as you would any transplant.

Thanks Farmerdill, the picture is a big help. I'm guessing that the leaves that will be below soil level should be removed, or can they stay? A new project (just what I need)....
Margo

Does not make any difference.

well, I've got a couple of 'donor' sweet potatoes bathing in a warm spot for a couple of weeks now, how long will it take before I see anything?

Do I need to resort to threatening them with baking in the oven?

(I should have gotten 'instant' potatoes.......... lol )

Depends, do you have the root end in water? Are you using grocery store sweet potatoes, which are often treated with sprout inhibitors?

How can you tell which is the root end?

My neighbor, an old farmer, suggests cutting them in the middle lengthwise and placing cut side down in a shallow pan of water. I have a few left in the root cellar but they have some mushy ends. Will they still make slips?

Notice the difference in the shape of the ends. The root will normally be smaller. They only sprout from the top. if they rot from the top, then no slips. If at the bottom they may produce slips, but I personally discard those that show rot.

Thanks! I'll check to see what might still be good.

most things I can tell which end is which by lifting up the tail........ but no tails on these sweet potatoes, lol

They are from the grocery store, (so are the regular spuds, they have 'eyes' galore!)

they've been on their sides in the water, and the skins seem to be thickening up?

I seem to lack patience....... lettuce seed will sprout for me in 2 days......

I'll give them a couple more weeks, if they go mushy they're compost, if no sprouts they're dinner.....

apparently giving the sweet potatoes a choice of becoming either compost, dinner or slip producing stock has worked!

today there's roots sprouting, can the tops be far behind.......

I love experimenting!

Okay, bit the bullet and bought the (very pricey) organic sweet potatoes in hopes that they have not been inhibited . I will try to figure out which end is the root, and start them on they're journey to the garden....
Margo

catmad, that's a great idea!

update on the slip-producing sweet potato project:

there's little slips starting on the first sweet potatoes that were started.

I found purple sweet potatoes at the grocery store, and they have been bathing in a warm spot, and there's roots galore from them.

now to pick a good spot for them in the garden.......

Ok, I rooted sweet potatoes in jars as a kid. You mean I can actually get a sweet potato by planting the whole thing once the "vine" comes up? And, you're saying "slips". Are those the little sprout from the "eyes?" How long do I wait to put them into the ground after they sprout?

Gymgirl, it's my understanding that you carefully twist the slip off the sweet potato and plant it, instant plant!

It'll be this year's gardening experiment!

My donor spuds are still fleshy, and I may end up cutting the slips off (leaving a bit of the donor flesh attached.) don't know yet. Hopefully the potatoes will tell me what they need.....

Sweet potatoes are roots. They don't have "eyes" like an Irish potato. The sprouts from the root are pulled off and transplanted. I like for them to be 6 to 10 inches long. Some folks like roots on them, but I have not found it to make a difference. they are easy transplants. You can even cut off pieces of vine stick them in the ground, wet the soil around them once and they take off.

THANKS!

growing sweet potatoes is new territory for me, they sound too easy to be true!

Farmerdill,
You are way TOO cool. And you speak volumes for the digital photography industry...Johnny on the spot with a proffered example!

Bonkers, they are easy below the Mason-Dixon line. In the north you will have to work at it. They are a long season hot weather crop.

Okay. Let me see if I understand this. After you get the slips planted and they grow and vine, they each produce one new sweet potato on the end of what was the slip you planted? Correct? Or will one slip produce more than one sweet potato?

How do we know when to dig them up?

Karen

If all goes well they will produce 8 to a dozen + sweet potatoes per vine. The rule of thumb is to dig them just before the first frost. But you can start digging in September. If frost kills the vines, they have to be dug immediately.

Farmer Dill,

Thank you soooo much for the great info and the pictures. My kids used to sprout sweet potatoes in water, but I never knew how you got to the growing of them. I have some extra planter bed area, so I'm going to give them a try. Don't need many as I'm the only one in the family who likes them -- silly people!!

Karen

I've got some yams I've been sprouting as a window plant. same treatment if I wanted to put them in the garden? Farmerdill, of course I'm asking you... they have grown so much slower than regular sweet potatoes.

If they really are yams (Dioscorea rotunda) white yam or (Dioscorea cayenensis) yellow yam, I can't help you. It is a tropical plant that I could not grow if I wanted to. These things grow 35 -40 foot vines and the tubers go beteen 6 and 60 lbs. More closely related to the air potato than to a sweet potato. There is a Chinese Yam (Dioscorea opposita) which can be grown in cooler climates. I f you have the moist southern sweet potato commonly marketed as a yam, although Federal law requires that sweet potato be imprinted somewhere on the box. I t is a sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas ) and the above discussion applys.
Edited to add link to a comparison table:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-23-a.html

This message was edited May 19, 2007 3:17 PM

Thanks. I think they're probably sweet potatoes. A little smaller, smoother, and redder, but the vines look a lot the same to me - I bought them in a small market where the labeling is probably not everything it should be. I'll turn them loose in the garden and see what happens... their days as a window plant are over.

I just baked my George Jets I planted earlier this year. Boy they were reallyyyyy sweet, so sweet that when you baked them, the "sweet potatoe juice" as I call it, just oozed out. It like eating melted sugar off the pan. They were a wonderful treat. This was my first year planting sweet potatoes. I dug them up about end of September, cured them 10+ days, and had them last night. I wished I saved a potatoe for next years crop. I will just buy then again from the catalog company. By the way, the vines were wonderful ground covers!! Not one weed made it thru it's canopy. Hmmm I thought. Mayby interplant them in the flower beds to choke out weeds in some hilly trouble spots next year? Anyway, certainly sweet potatoes are veryyyyyy easy to grow and care for. I just watered when it got dry, despite the aweful drought in the Southeast, they still did very well.

rebecca30

Rebecca30 So by "curing" them do you mean after you dug them up you let them just sit and dry. Probably not phrased right. I have not grown sweet potatoes before but the ones you described sounded so good, thought I might try next year. Thanks Deanna

Yup, that is correct. Cure them (dry them in a shaded warm spot) for about 10 days or more if you want. I checked out the NC State Coop Extension service and they had some info on it. I plant to catalog more for next year. They were a real treat. I just let me sit on the front porch on a chair in the shade for a while. :))

rebecca30

I'd recommend using certified stock to plant in your garden, plant pests that survive in the root can be transplanted into your garden bed. If you grow organically, the last thing you'll want is a pest from someone else's ground to become established in your garden.

Is it possible to grow sweet potatoes in a 14 gallon container pot ...? Would you just put 1 vine per pot? When to start and how long does it take before they are ready? I live near Galveston Texas on the Bolivar peninsula.

Never tried it, but theoretically just about anything can be grown in a pot. They are so easy to grow in the ground, particularly in your area, that I have never even thought about it. You can plant the slips as soon as all danger of frost is past, which again in the Galveston area, they should grow as perennials. The rest of us grow them as tender perennials. Depending on cultivar, they take from 3 -5 months to produce from slips.

Thanks!!! I have been growing everything in pots for the last few years.. tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, green beans, onions, garlic, mustard greens, spinach. I wasn't sure about the depth that sweet potatoes would need... or if one slip per pot was enough. Growing in pots has kept the yard tidy... also several neighborhood cats love to roam and use any turned earth as a litter box. It is expensive to purchase potting soil each year..... but it is a rewarding hobby!!! I appreciate your expertise....read your responses all the time. Thanks again.