Propagating Sweet Potatoes

[yotetrapper]

How do you do it? I've heard they can be suspended half in a jar of water and they will sprout, but what do you do from there?

[chalstonsc]

yote,
I've read: 7-8 weeks before last frost, cut sweet potatoes lengthwise in half, lay cut side down in cake pan filled with moist peat moss. Put a shallow covering of moist peat over pieces and wrap in plastic bag. When slips appear take plastic bag off and put in sun. Pull apart each slip and plant after last frost date, preferably in raised beds, 12-15" apart.
I've never done it but am going to this year.

[yotetrapper]

I've read to "pull the slips" and you just said pull apart slips, but if someone could tell me what THAT means, I'd be grateful.

[Anijunga]

I did it with a Georgia Jet tuber and you can see my experience here and here. I've read that slips can be planted deep like tomatoes as they'll grow roots on the stems. Also, make sure you harden off the slips before planting them out as you'll crisp the leaves like I did and not get any tubers. Email me if you have any questions!

[kath]

I have grown sweet potatoes from my own slips for the past 3 yrs.; Anijunga's pics are great! Since you live in a colder area, it is good to warm the soil before planting. I hill up 12" high ridges and cover them with black plastic a week or so ahead of my planting out time, which is right after my early peas are out (early June). I plant each slip 12" apart by cutting a slit in the plastic, making a hole with a dowel or trowel, setting the roots in (never heard about planting the slip deep), and watering well. You need to water the slips well until they get established (at least a few days) and if it's really hot & sunny, I try to give them some shade. After that, they thrive on neglect.
I've tried GA Jet, Vardamon, Stevenson, Porto Rico, Sharp and Beauregard. Beauregard is the only one that has produced healthy, perfect, huge tubers that store into April for us in our basement.

[yotetrapper]

Wow anijunga, thanks! Your pictorial is awesome! Thanks everyone else too. I had already started my tater in water, then read the posts about using peat, so I'm glad to see it can be done with the water way! Also glad to see you said you got 5 shoots from one potato. I was only wanting about 4 plants, so I guess my one potato should be enough. I'm the only one here that eats them, and i dont eat that many of them either.

Kath, how was the taste of Beauregard compared to all the other varities you've tried? P.S.- your seeds went out today.

[Anijunga]

No problem. You may want to check that bit about planting them deep - I forget where I read it and it may not be valid. Seconding what Kath said about using a plastic mulch on the soil a week before planting - it's even more important up here in chilly Canada. Here's another post from a fellow Canadian blogger in my area that grew sweet potatoes successfully.

This year, I've decided to buy slips from a Canadian company as my sweet potato project totally fizzled last year. I'll be putting mine in around June.

[kath]

I planted 9 slips last year and they all came from the same potato-you'll have plenty! The Beauregard is our fav-we like things sweet. The heirlooms supposedly have better flavor, especially some of the whites, but we had so much trouble with rot and other maladies that once we found such a great keeper, we stopped the great sweet potato experiment. (Wonder if I'll ever reach that point with tomatoes?...nah!)
You will get an amazing # of potatoes from 4 plants-you can 'steal' from them before harvest if you like, but they are sweeter if you leave them in until the frost just begins to hit the leaves-then you do need to harvest or the keeping qualities will be affected.

[barkeater]

Just don't make the same mistake I made. It is too cold where I live to grow sweets but I tried anyway. I like the white ones and did the toothpick and mason jar thing half full of water last year using O'Henry from the year before. But, it worked too well.

I started in mid March and by the end of April I had 8 beautiful slips. However, that is 5 weeks too early! So, I had the bright idea of potting them up in 6" pots. Oh, they were beautiful with one foot long vines when I planted them out.

However, it is the root you want with sweet potatoes. When I dug them up, they were all wrapped around themselves and looked like a pile of turds. Apparently, they can't handle any confinement in a pot, even if you are careful to.spread the roots when you plant them

[mensplace]

http://www.growingformarket.com/articles/20071226_31

The secret is the heat

[yotetrapper]

Thanks for the article Mensplace.