Starting Sweet Potatoes

[JRinPA]

LOL yeah I hope. I put corn block#2 in the backyard, about 2" tall transplants, as the rain started. Red beet seeds in the rows of corn and more sweet potatoes in between the rows. 33 or so slips there. I won't be sidedressing at all, that bed got fish again in May, then it was re-covered with black plastic and continued as the green house tunnel floor. That has to be about the most lush feeling soil I've ever planted in, 2 years with fish underneath plus compost on top each year. Lots of vertebrae coming up that just crumble like an old log. I want to take a pic of that layout.

I still have...the last pulling of slips that went into approx 20-25 blocks. I may have Noded two of the longer ones into pieces but most were full slips, just short. They didn't like being broke off then getting 2 days in the sun last week, so I put them under the grow lights in the cellar and they look much better.

My only concern is, did I get extremely lucky on the sweet potatoes at the store? How do I repeat that next year? I got 8 at walmart, just smaller bulk unnamed. Six of which threw good slips. I bought one red sweet at redner's, it went moldy fairly quickly. It seemed a good idea to diversify; maybe next year I buy three different. I don't expect I can keep any stored April start time without a special setup.

[JRinPA]

Two days after plant out. Something digging at a few of the corn starts. I'll need to thin anyway. As long as they leave the slips alone.

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[brownrexx]

@JRinPA have you grown sweet potatoes like this before? They seem awfully close to me.

I am looking forward to a picture in a couple of months.

[JRinPA]

Supposed to be one or two good sized potatoes. With the nodal cuts. We'll see, depends on how much rain we get, I think. Vines for me usually don't go crazy until the end of August.

[GoDawgs]

This will be an interesting sweet potato experiment.

The other day I found that the deer had nipped some leaves off the sweet potato trellis. And the watermelon vines.

[JRinPA]

That last pic of the sweet potatoes above...they didn't do much at that spot with corn grown over them. There were a few, I'm sure, but I was hoping for bigger with single node. Some of those cut slips did okay at other spots, but it just seems like they don't get enough sun without having their own piece of sky. This year I'm trying bags and ground up a trellis at one spot. Full size slips, not cut. And another spot, 20 ft bed in the back yard, they won't have anything over them since the snap peas came out today. It might be too late for the slips I just put in, but the older plants have just started to reach out on the surface.

BUT the reason I was posting - starting sweet potato slips from potatoes in humidity under lights, then dirt under lights, then the dirt tray out in the greenhouse. This is the second year I've done it on time. Last year was grocery store sweet potatoes. This year was leftovers that made it through from last year's grow. I just took the rest of the slips off now and planted the last rows. And I'll tell you, the sweet potatoes still appear to be fine. I am about to clean them up and peel them.

Does anyone else eat the seed sweets after getting enough slips? I'm thinking sweet potato pudding, that's what I came on to look for, that recipe. I don't know if we ate them last year after getting slips off...

[GoDawgs]

You know, I had never even thought about it. I don't know why you couldn't. Please post your results if you do. Inquiring minds want to know!

I grow mine in a window box and when done getting slips, the box gets dumped on the compost pile. But then, I use about three or four pretty small sweets for the process so they wouldn't amount to much anyway.

[JRinPA]

They're still staring at me, I never found that recipe. I can't believe how solid they feel, maybe they're woody. I know I was hesitating on the using the two biggest as slip starters. They really produced though. Lost my camera again atm and I really hate using a cell phone cam for stuff.

[Uncle_Feist]

Pulled enough slips to finish planting my row yesterday.

[JRinPA]

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Yeah those mother potatoes were fine yet for pudding. They all had started little slips again, and upon peeling, the largest one showed more yellow than orange right under the skin. But the bulk of it was orange. I grated the three biggest, made 6 cups, stuffed it into the 4 cup recipe.

[GoDawgs]

Good stuff! Boy, your sweets might be in a race with Mr. Frosty. When's your first frost?

[JRinPA]

Usually mid October is first frost and then gets warm for three more weeks.
I've had slips in the ground for quite a while now but they don't do much here until the ground warms up. They just started taking off last week when it got hot (meaning staying in the 70s at night). I put compost in and on top but it is still heavy clay soil and just doesn't warm up fast. Most of my okra is barely a foot tall.

I did full sized slips this year instead of the nodal cuts. Those bags have 2 or 3 slips in each, 15 gal bags, competing against the row on the right that was in a bit earlier but just idled. This is a week back, and they are really starting to vine since that pic.

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I also have some in the 20 ft bed at home, tried that a few years back and it was O K, we'll see this time.