Sweet Potatoes...

greatgranny wrote:Just for my own experiment I purchased a grocery store sweet potato. Did the toothpick method and it has been 1 week and little sprouts are growing. If they make it to the leaf stage I'm going to plant them in large containers and keep them in my sunroom. I'll just go nuts trying to contain them if they make it but I don't care. I've always wanted to be strangled by a vine. The ceiling in the sunroom is about 8 feet so I should have some room to train it. If this works, I will start another batch and put them in containers that I can take outside in June and let them go.

A follow up: Many root like sprouts under the water line. Will they eventually produce the slips with leaves? Since I have never done this before, just need to know if I need to do something different.

The roots, sort of white? will grow under the water and the greenery will grow up toward the light. The sprouts for the greenery may be under the water line, but will grow out of the water.
You can also just put the potato in some mm or damp peat and it will sprout that way too.
Jo

Yes, the roots are white. Some are getting rather long. I am encouraged but just wanted clarification. Guess I had better get the containers ready. Note that I am only going to plant a couple of the slips because I will need to keep them in my sunroom. Yesterday my sunroom temperature was 80. I think the sweets will actually love it.

I did the farmers market sweet potato and got slips and planted. The potato looked okay, however, my harvest was plagued by scurf. This webimage is a pretty good representative of what I've got on my purple sweets.



I'm trying to do some reading up, but does anybody have the highlights on this scurf management?

Should I send the MM I had the sweets in off to the landfill? It sounds like scurf will stay present in the soil?

Looks like I found my own answer with google. Louisiana AG

So looks like I can plant other things, just no sweets for a few years.

I purchased some slips from HD early last May and after about 4 months I harvested 7 lbs of the best tasting sweet potatoes. The goal was to have them for Thanksgiving. I didn't know if they would keep that long so I remade the bed using tips from the old vines. I harvested again the day before Thanksgiving and pulled up much smaller but still great tasting sweet potatoes. I was so excited to know from that first purchase of slips, I had two harvests. Well, I revamped the soil and planted the vine tips again. They are doing great! I will give them plenty of time to grow, and let them go into the heat of early summer. I expect to have another great harvest, but think it might take more time as they started in November and will need to wait for summer heat to produce well. I will be watching the weather to see if I need to cover them up if we expect very cold weather. Hardly ever freezes here as we are so close to the river. The moral of the story is I am looking forward to my third harvest from one single purchase of sweet potato slips. Gotta love it! I wonder how mny times I can do this? If the vines stay healthy, I may never have to purchase slips again!

Anyone up for giving me an idiot proof 101 guide on sweet potatoes including loads of pictures ?

I have a shop purchased American sweet potato sitting in an egg fitting on a coolish room on a window cill away from direct sun light and don't fully have a grasp on the getting of the slips .or temperatures needed at various stages .
I hope to produce them in tubs in my glasshouse .

Are slips roots or are they shoots ?

Don't have any pics handy, and don't know what an egg fitting is?
Just take the potato, put in damp peat or coir, (they like the acidity), cover completely. put in a window or near your light, they like warmth. It will put out roots, and it will put out shoots. The shoots are called slips because, when you get ready to plant or transplant the 'shoots', a farmer takes his finger, moving toward the shoot and 'slips' it off of the potato. I'd let them get about 12 inches long before taking off the potato. Depends how long of season you have, but, you can plant the slips, then when they get about 2 ft long, you can snip it to about 12 in. and root the cutting, wala, another slip!
If you think it may not be hot enough for them, you can plant under black plastic to heat up the soil.
Jo

They will love the heat in the glasshouse in summer!
Jo

Thanks littlejo, I reckon I have the gist of it

An egg fitting :-
One of those little compressed pape mache boxes with inbuilt egg holding cups that hold 6 , 10 , 12 .15 or 20 or so eggs at a time when sold in boxes in supermarket shops etc.

plantoid,

Here's a short but on target little diy description of starting sweet potato slips. http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-plant-and-grow-sweet-potatoes/index.html

I've been growing them in "potato bags" about 30" across and 20" deep. Last year, I harvested about 10 pounds of potatoes per bag. They like LOTS of water. Also NO extra nitrogen or you'll get all leaves and very few potatoes.

Here they are early in the season. As the season progressed, they grew to cover the pyramid trellis I had in each bag.

But if you want, the purple sprouting tips are both tasty and very nutritious. My DIL asked me to plant sweet potatos for the tips not the roots. It's an asian thing I think.


my plastic tub of sweet potatos in Sep


Kay

walshevak wrote:But if you want, the purple sprouting tips are both tasty and very nutritious. My DIL asked me to plant sweet potatos for the tips not the roots. It's an asian thing I think.


my plastic tub of sweet potatos in Sep


Kay

The foliage is very nutritious and easily dehydrated. A staple in some African countries.

littlejo - Do you know how long it typically takes to get the slips if you plant the s.p. in peat? I've found estimates from a couple of weeks to a couple of months!

I've never measured the time required but, I did compare putting them in damp peat versus putting in a glass of water with toothpicks. The peat was quicker, plus, more slips were produced in the peat.
Jo

Jo, did you notice if they sprouted with longer hours of sunlight? Mine were a failure last year but I thought maybe if I had more hours of light if that would promote the growth... or vice versa. :scratch:

Camprn, I think the light helps, but warmth is important. I think I'd put the pot on the fridge, then move into light at the first tiny sprout. I don't have that problem here for it gets warm so quick in spring that I just put the pot on the porch, then as I passed the pot, going to the garden, I'd get the slips that were ready and plant daily.
Jo

I am ready to grow sweet potatoes this year! I think I have learned enough about them to be able to do it. What is amazing with all the articles I have read, MM is the ideal growing medium for sweet potatoes, no surprise there! I think I finally understand how to grow sweet potatoes and also found I can grow them in Northern Utah where I live! For my area, the heat of the soil to start them will be very important so I will start off with clear plastic to heat the soil so I can plant before July (I am pretty sure that is what I gleaned from the articles for my area). This article also describes how important it is to cure and store them correctly so they are sweet. We do not have much humidity here except when we run our evaporative air coolers (swamp coolers) in the Summer. So creating humidity and heat, both at the same time for curing and storing will be interesting.

If someone has posted this already, sorry for duplicating the effort. I did notice it was mentioned in an article posted. So it was a sub-article, lol!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/growing-sweet-potatoes-zm0z11zsto.aspx#axzz2ObwcLsM1