Starting Sweet Potatoes

[GoDawgs]

Buried in my inbox I found a great article on starting sweet potato slips. Three different methods. Thought I'd pass this along.

https://www.sustainablemarketfarming.co ... ato-slips/

[brownrexx]

I am planning on growing my own this year but I only need a few plants. Last year sprouts started growing on my stored tubers with no interaction from me so this year I am going to try that again by bringing a few tubers up from the basement and storing them in my pantry which is 70°

Thanks for the reminder. I should probably do that soon.

[worth1]

If I wanted to I should have started about 3 months ago.

[JRinPA]

I am starting soon as well. I found a youtube last year where the guy did an amazing job starting slips, then had them all destroyed by deer after planting. Basically propagating in trays just like seed starts, then breaking the slips off and rooting them. I tried his method last year, too late to avoid buying slips, but it worked pretty well and it should be no problem to replicate. The slips I bought last year were expensive, weak, and water was not changed to point of scum and mosquito larvae in it. Not to mention they are too early to plant out at that time. I have pretty much sworn off our local Agway.

[GoDawgs]

I'll be starting mine this Saturday, using a plastic window box and laying about four small sweets just under the soil surface. It works pretty good. Last year I started them on March 12th for planting slips on May 1. That was maybe one week too early so I'm starting them one week later this year and we'll see. Once those vines break the surface, they go quick!

[GoDawgs]

Today I started four small sweet potatoes for growing slips. These are 'Jewel', a nematode resistant variety that pICKLES found in 2016 at a Publix supermarket. She bought one and we've been using its decendants every year since then!



Planting them in a window box has worked very well. This year I used a 50/50 mix of used tomato potting soil from last year and some fresh regular Miracle Grow potting soil. The potatoes were set in about 3" below the final soil level and then covered.



They'll stay indoors by a window until the vines start poking up. Then, weather permitting, they'll go out onto the porch to do their thing. I'm thinking about an April 29th plant out



This method had worked really well for me, much better than the old "potato in a jar of water" method and also produces more slips at once. I'm just planting 11 hills but when I've pulled the slips I let the potatoes make more and give them away.

[JRinPA]

I like the shape of the rack of the one on the right. Instead of a seahorse, it looks like a fat seabuck.

[brownrexx]

None of my stored potatoes have sprouted yet but I did bring some tubers upstairs from the cool basement. I would not plant them outside until the end of May so I am about a month behind you @GoDawgs

[Whwoz]

Then there is this vid which @GoDawgs found and posted in my glog

[worth1]

I found a sweet potato in the garage
Totally forgot about it.

[JRinPA]

How are they looking? Plant out still on? I have been "conditioning" some store bought ones, putting them on compost soon.

[GoDawgs]

@JRinPA, they're about ready. I'm sure I could get ten slips out of this box right now. They're scheduled to go in on Apr 29, a good moon planting day for root crops.

[JRinPA]

"Okay so I thought I was doing that first method of the three, starting in flats. I now have a lot. But it looks like I didn't bury them enough. I have lots of sprouts, some getting tall, but not many roots that I can see on the slips. I only buried the sweet potatoes halfway."

I wrote that a few days back but never hit post, it seems. I went ahead and cut up the 4 biggest slips and tried the single node method. I figured, don't need roots for that. Chopped up, those 4 slips filled 22 soil blocks. I did not cut off the leaves. Here's hoping it works.

I added more mix to bury the sweet potatoes more, so the slips should start throwing more roots. If the single node method doesn't work for me, I'll leave the slips whole. It looks like I have 6 strong seed potatoes making slips and 2 weaker ones with few or none as yet.

[JRinPA]

That cutting method, boy that seems to work. I checked the underside of the tray and I see a white root sticking out from every soil block, and a new stem/leaf forming at each node. Most leaves are still small, a few millimeters, so I wasn't sure how they were doing until I held the tray up and looked at the underside. I have plenty, plenty of full size slips as well from 6 of the 8 sweet potatoes I bought. I'll probably cut some more up this week, some of the slips are pushing 15-18", well past the grow lights. This is much better than buying third class slips from agway for a king's ransom.

[JRinPA]

Pics from 5/18

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Pics from today 5/25 The sweet potato tray dried out a little too much.

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I'm going to cut up those long ones and move the whole thing outside.

[brownrexx]

They look nice @JRinPA I just put some of my small slips in soil last night.

[JRinPA]

I just planted finally, yesterday and today. I cut the last of the spinach from the 30 ft raised bed and planted blocks of the nodes in the same holes. The spinach was fill in transplants in all the holes not occupied by broc/caul/cabbage. They have a lot of shade right now but the bed is warm and the broccoli harvest has started. I broke off some bottom cabbage leaves for extra space. Hopefully the cabbage is not too affected.

Today I planted more nodes and full slips under the first corn blocks, in the rows. The full slips were in water/bare root and I can see small potatoes on some of them. I still have about 40 block nodes and the slips are still coming on the potatoes. I have a good idea where they are going.

No way could I have this flexibility with purchased slips.

I hope everyone reading this thread will give a try at starting their own - if you are already doing seed starts, it is not much harder. The success rate for node cutting and having a root and sprout inside a few days is very high, above 95%, way higher than I thought it would be. Hopefully they also grow potatoes!

[brownrexx]

I grew slips from my sprouted stored sweet potato. I planted the slips in potting soil and let them grow until I saw roots coming out of the bottom of the cells. I planted them in the garden 3 days ago and today we are getting a nice rain.

[JRinPA]

I took about 20 more slips off the sweet potatoes and put them into soil blocks. Was going to compost them all, but five of them were still very firm. I brought them in the house and asked, what do you think, these still look okay don't they?
Candied sweet potatoes in June, woohoo! They were fine yet.

[brownrexx]

You are going to have a LOT of sweet potatoes @JRinPA