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

[Ridgerunner]

Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge! I didn't know that they will sprout even without water.

They do better with water but that is one way when I know to toss the ones in my storage box, they sprout.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

I’m growing sweet potatoes for the second year. First time growing my own slips I just transferred the first few slips from the potatoes into a jar of water to root.

 

[alfie10]

just found this ,been wanting to try sp,s for a while now i know what to do thanks

 

[PopoMyers]

Who doesn't like to eat a steaming hot sweet potato with some sugar and cinnamon?!​

Grow them in your own garden, enjoy the beautiful lush green plants during the summer and feast on the roots during the cold season. It is easy and sweet potato plants grow everywhere where you have at least three months of no frost weather.

What are sweet potatoes?
The sweet potato is a tropical plant belonging to the Morning Glory family that vigorously grow long vines with beautiful white and pink flowers. The roots form starch rich tubers with a sweet taste that we know as sweet potato or yam. (Not yams! That is something else!) In its native habitat the plant can become a pesky weed due to its vigorous growth, but in non tropical areas the vines will die during the first frost. More on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato

How to grow sweet potatoes?
If you just buy some sweet potato tubers in the store and bury them in the ground, like you can do with ordinary potatoes, you will be very disappointed: There will be lots and lots of vines, leaves and flowers but sadly almost no tubers in the ground.
New sweet potatoes are being grown from slips that are being created by partially submerging sweet potato tubers in water: You take three matches or something similar and stick them into the sides of the tuber and place it with the bulky side down into a glass of water like this:

This is my collection of sweet potatoes that i hope to use to grow slips. I just bought them at the local grocery store and placed them into the jars. After just one week, the yellow ones have started to grow roots, which is a good sign, so they will start to grow slips very soon:

​

 

[PopoMyers]

Also, as a side note, the leaves are edible as greens, and quite nutritious.
https://horticulture.ucdavis.edu/information/sweet-potato-leaves-family-nutrition-overview-research

Used to live in TX, where they grew extremely well and lush. I miss that here in W. WA, too cold for them.

 

[PopoMyers]

Who doesn't like to eat a steaming hot sweet potato with some sugar and cinnamon?!​

Grow them in your own garden, enjoy the beautiful lush green plants during the summer and feast on the roots during the cold season. It is easy and sweet potato plants grow everywhere where you have at least three months of no frost weather.

What are sweet potatoes?
The sweet potato is a tropical plant belonging to the Morning Glory family that vigorously grow long vines with beautiful white and pink flowers. The roots form starch rich tubers with a sweet taste that we know as sweet potato or yam. (Not yams! That is something else!) In its native habitat the plant can become a pesky weed due to its vigorous growth, but in non tropical areas the vines will die during the first frost. More on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato

How to grow sweet potatoes?
If you just buy some sweet potato tubers in the store and bury them in the ground, like you can do with ordinary potatoes, you will be very disappointed: There will be lots and lots of vines, leaves and flowers but sadly almost no tubers in the ground.
New sweet potatoes are being grown from slips that are being created by partially submerging sweet potato tubers in water: You take three matches or something similar and stick them into the sides of the tuber and place it with the bulky side down into a glass of water like this:

This is my collection of sweet potatoes that i hope to use to grow slips. I just bought them at the local grocery store and placed them into the jars. After just one week, the yellow ones have started to grow roots, which is a good sign, so they will start to grow slips very soon:

​

I've also sprouted them by laying them down in a pan of potting soil, halfway buried, kept moist. Then took off the slips wham they were about 6" tall, and placed them in a jar of water to root.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Also, as a side note, the leaves are edible as greens, and quite nutritious.
https://horticulture.ucdavis.edu/information/sweet-potato-leaves-family-nutrition-overview-research

Used to live in TX, where they grew extremely well and lush. I miss that here in W. WA, too cold for them.

Really? - I know somebody who grows them in Alaska! - She lives near Ketchikan and grows the slips inside the house until Mid April, then plants them into the most sunny spot in her garden and has a relatively good harvest after the first nightly frost around mid October.

 

[PopoMyers]

Really? - I know somebody who grows them in Alaska! - She lives near Ketchikan and grows the slips inside the house until Mid April, then plants them into the most sunny spot in her garden and has a relatively good harvest after the first nightly frost around mid October.

Guess I may have to try! Thanks!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Guess I may have to try! Thanks!

If you have at least three months of warm weather have a reasonable harvest. I was running late last year and had the slips in the hastily prepared raised bed in early June and we got the first frosty nights by the end of September, the result was still one orange bucket full of tubers

 

[CluckerFamily]

How far north will sweet potatoes grow?

I grow sweet potatoes in Wisconsin.