Let's grow some sweet potatoes together this year! 🍠🍠🍠

[humblehillsfarm]

I'm just over the WV boarder, in Southern PA. I started sweet potatoes by cutting them in half about three or four weeks ago, and only one out of four has one single slip bud starting to form. The other three look like they started to grow roots out the bottom, and then stopped. Should I not have cut them in half? It looks like you kept yours whole! I tried last year to grow them too, but they never formed any slips. I want sweet potatoes so bad!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I grow sweet pots in my raised flower bed every year. I'm in North East Ohio. I just go to the local hardware store, buy what they have started and plant them. They do really well for me! And have the prettiest purple flowers!

I have started to raise them last year, and i am not so much a fan of dishes with sweet potatoes. It is more for the beautiful flowers and the lush green on the trellis. Also my ducks love to eat the leaves, so everything that grows through the fence is theirs and during fall and winter they enjoy all the small and odd formed tubers. I just cut those into bill-size pieces and cook them for a couple of minutes in the hot air fryer:

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Sometimes you can find the Hawaiian or Okinawa sweet potatoes at your local asian grocery store.

Good idea! I need to look at the Asian Supermarket next time when i deliver my ducks's eggs there.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I also wonder if temperature inside will make a difference? They are tropical loving plants. Warmth should get them going. I am trying to sprout two organic ones in laid down in potting soil in a 75 degree room.

You have a valid point! - I am trying to grow them at my home-office window, where it is rather cold during the night. I will move them to the dining room window today, where it is much warmer and see if that improves sprouting.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I'm just over the WV boarder, in Southern PA. I started sweet potatoes by cutting them in half about three or four weeks ago, and only one out of four has one single slip bud starting to form. The other three look like they started to grow roots out the bottom, and then stopped. Should I not have cut them in half? It looks like you kept yours whole! I tried last year to grow them too, but they never formed any slips. I want sweet potatoes so bad!

I don't cut them into pieces, like one would do with potatoes, i just keep them wet and when the slips are tall enough i remove them and plant them into soil if they have already developed roots or they go into a glass with water until they have developed their roots.
The tuber continues to produce new slips until it suddenly collapses and starts to rot.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have not done it myself since you need a long growing season but I've heard of people in warmer climates of cutting them into pieces and planting like regular potatoes. Starting with slips extends your growing season.

Even on the top of a tall bookcase I've had one rot instead of sprout. Warm is really important.

 

[PopoMyers]

I think most of us live in the 48 states, and I've lived in both the NW and TX. Even in Texas, you would / could buy slips. I also started my own from whole tubers. We planted a few tiny tubers which someone gave my hubby straight in the ground in Okinawa, but it's hot (above 85) there most of the year. We then just picked off a start from the vines and stuck them directly in the soil. Unfortunately we had to leave before we could harvest them. My Filipino friend would come and pick the leaves for cooking.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I have not done it myself since you need a long growing season but I've heard of people in warmer climates of cutting them into pieces and planting like regular potatoes. Starting with slips extends your growing season.

Even on the top of a tall bookcase I've had one rot instead of sprout. Warm is really important.

As i wrote in one of my previous postings, some neighbors are suspecting that big-brand stores are selling irradiated potatoes, sweet potatoes and other "fresh" produce to prevent people like us from using the seeds and grow our own stuff.
While i don't believe in that irradiation - that would just be too expensive - i do believe that the food industry has a bag full of dirty little tricks to prevent us from using their products in any other way than eating them.
I remember as a kid, we always bought 200Kg of potatoes from the local farmers for the winter and stored them in the cold basement of the house. By spring most all of them had started to grow pale sprouts. - Fast forward to today, buy a bag of potatoes in a supermarket and let them sit for a longer time: Most of them just start to rot and only a few will start sprouts. My assumption is that those potatoes are so thoroughly "cleaned" that the eyes are being destroyed.
And i am sure there is yet another dirty trick to stop sweet potatoes from growing slips.
One of my neighbors is selling chicken eggs and she has a rooster, so those eggs are fertile: Before selling them she shakes each egg violently and then stores it overnight in a fridge at almost the freezing mark. She firmly believes that this will prevent any chick from developing.