Sprouting Sweet Potatoes

We usually purchase sweet potato 'slips' to grow each season.

But this year we have purple sweet potatoes we saved from another source in Fall.

We also save our own Irish potato and fingerling varieties for seed potatoes. The always sprout eyes, and we just cut them up to plant.

But the sweet potatoes have not sprouted on their own.

Looking for advice....how do you sprout your sweet potatoes for planting?

If they were purchased from a grocery store, they are likely treated with a chemical to inhibit sprouting. (Unless they are organic) This does wear off with time, which is why those really old potatoes you accidentally forgot about will sometimes start to sprout.

I always grow mine from the grocery store, it's cheaper. I buy them in the fall and leave them in the garage at least a couple of months. Then stick toothpicks into them all around about in the middle of the potato, and balance them in a cup/jar full of water with one end of the potato in the water and the other end sticking up. Sit them somewhere sunny and forget about them (other than keeping the water full) for several weeks and some of them should sprout. Some never do.

You have to put the sweet potato in water like this...

It's the same method you use to sprout an avocado seed.

As for regular potatoes, I used store bought, but bought them at a health food store that only sells organics and I picked ones that already had eyes developing. I already planted Yukon Golds. I just checked on them yesterday (they are in straw and easy to peek at without disturbing them too much) and the eyes have grown several inches and the last week. I just prepared my other potato bed and will be planting purple potatoes next.

Those leaves look super healthy, wife! Is that the whole potato, or did you cut it?

That isn't mine. I stole the picture to illustrate the method You don't cut the potato, you put it in whole.

Mine did look like that last year. This year I bought slips so I could get varieties you can't buy in the store. I bought short season varieties, one gold one purple. They should be here next month, but I will sure be saving and sprouting my own slips next year!

Thanks...that helps and we'll give it a shot!


And, no, not from the grocery store. Although in times past that's how we got our Yukon Golds started cheap too. LOL

The purple sweet potatoes we have came from another farmers market grower.

I have done it with the ornamental sweet potatoes and it seemed to take forever... hopefully, this won't be the case for yours.

How long does it take for those sprouts to happen? My organic SP has been in the canning jar like that for about a week and a halfnow, and I think maybe i have roots starting, maybe, but no slips yet.
I also have 1/2 of one in a pot of dirt with about 1/2" under the soil with about 3" above the soil. This second one has only been there for a week, but no signs either.
Both are organic SP, I tried regular and they just got moldy.

I cheaped out this year and didn't want to pay for slips since last time I gave them a try I didn't get a harvest. But I decided to give it a try with a sweet potato I was prepping to cook, and used the ends I trimmed to try and get sprouts going on them. I just stuck them in a shallow dish of water and one sprouted and began growing leaves. That one I put in potting soil about halfway up to the leaves and it's still doing fine.
Recently this week I pulled another one out of the drawer and it had small sprouts starting on it, so I trimmed them and started them in a shallow dish of water again. They may not have enough potato on them to do well, since I just sliced a chunk off with the sprout attached, but I intend it only as an experiment, so it's all good.

One secret to sprouting sweet potatoes is that they need to be warm. It is usually best to put them on top of the refrigerator, a high book shelf, someplace like that, if your house is warm enough. Another possibility is to build a heat box, something to provide heat. I built one for sprouting seeds by making a box, lining the bottom and sides with aluminum foil, and putting some old Christmas tree lights in there. It does not take many of those bulbs to provide a lot of heat.

It is great for sprouting peppers and things that like. Here are some shots of my set-up to show the heat box where I was sprouting tomatoes and peppers. My wife keeps the house so cool that my sweet potatoes mold instead of sprout if I don't provide heat. The top of the refrigerator is not warm enough for me. I have to put the can with sweet potatoes and water on this to get them to sprout.