planting sweet potatoes

[teacher]

okay, the good folks over at Backyard Chickens sent me to you all. Need some sage advice regarding my garden this year.
I am a former country bumpkin gone suburban. Despite my DH's best efforts to civilize me, I have accumulated chickens, a pony, and fenced off a portion of our postage stamp backyard for my garden.
I want to do sweet potatoes this year. Back in my wide open spaces day, I cut those ordinary tan store potatoes into chunks once they went a bit funky and put them in the ground and got taters. Can i do the same thing with store bought sweet potatoes? I would just try it but these days my 'farm' space is sorely limited, don't want to waste a single precious square foot of the garden!

 

[GardeNerd]

I had been told when we did it, to buy them from a farmer's market or buy organic ones at a natural food store. Some of the sweet potatoes in the regular grocery stores have been sprayed with something that inhibits growth so they have a longer shelf life. I don't know if it is accurate info.

I haven't tried the regular due to that advice. I bought ours at trader joes.

 

[Catalina]

I use started sprouts from a nursery.

My grandma take store sweet potatoes and puts one end in a glass jar filled with water. She waits until the sweet potato puts out roots or shoots and then plants those in soil filled pots.

Eventually she plants them out in the garden.

Where are you located?
Here in the frigid North we have to start sweet potatoes really early, because they have a long growing season.
:rainbow-sun

 

[teacher]

I'm in South East Virginia. We got snow once in the past 12 months. Today was at least mid-70s for the high. Gotta love global warming.
I like Catalina's grandma's idea-I think I'll try it. Good thing I already had dinner or it would really hurt my feelings to cut up these sweet taters.

 

[seedcorn]

My folks would take a sweet potato, put toothpicks in the center and place the bottom half in water. Toothpicks hold the top half out of the water. After sprouts get roots, tear them off and plant them. Make sure you water the sprouts often and well until they take off in soil.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree the easiest way to start sweet potatoes at home is to put a sweet potato in water. The important thing with sweet potatoes is that they are a warm weather crop. Keep your sweet potato in water warm and it should sprout fine. If you keep it where it is too cool, like in an unheated garage, it will rot instead of sprout. Believe me, I know. I now keep mine on top of a tall bookcase on the theory that hot air rises and this is the warmest place in the house. My mom puts hers on top of the refrigerator.

Dad used to dig a 12" deep pit, put several inches of fresh chicken manure in it, put a couple of inches of dirt, put a layer of sweet potatoes (don't let them touch) then top that with a few inches of rotted sawdust. The composting chicken manure would provide heat and help the sweet potatoes to sprout. Then Dad saw somebody else sprouting sweet potatoes in the house in water and switched to that method. It is a lot easier.

 

[erthymom2]

i got our local farmers market to put up a "how to" sign next to their SP so others know how to grow them. They had seed potatoes of all kinds but none for sweet potatoes. now i get free starter slips from the booth owner every year - and i trade her fresh brown eggs or tin-can brown bread for them. Got over 60 lbs of sweet potatoes last fall from just one batch of slips.

 

[sheps4her]

Last year I planted sweet potato also. I planted them the exact same way as I planted the regular potato. Cut up the potato into sections with good eyes, let them dry out for a day or 2, then popped them in the ground. Had a bumper crop!! Boy were they delicious! I can't wait for this year's harvest!

 

[momofdrew]

this will be my first time growing sweet potatoes I have ordered slips from Johnny's select seed and expect them to show when it is time to plant in my area...I plan on using black plastic mulch to warm the soil How far apart do they need to be planted in a row and how close can the rows be??? do they vine could I grow them on a trellis???or are they bushy... how much space do they take up??? any advice would be appreciated

 

[simple life]

It depends on the type of sweet potato you buy as to whether it will be bushy or vining. More varieties are the vining type than the busy ones from what I have been reading.
I ordered both and from what I have read it seems the busy plants take up less space than the vining ones.
the vining ones need alot of room to spread the but the bushy type stay a more compact.

I found a couple of links, see if they are helpful to you or not.

The gist of it is that its best to put them in a raised bed to warm the soil, you can use black plastic as well to move it along.
If you overfeed them they get more foilage and not the tubers that you want, don't go crazy giving them great fertilized soil, just lots of organic matter.
They should be planted 12-18 inches apart and leave 3-4 feet between rows.
You need to give them room to grow, they need 4 months of warm weather, don't water them the last 3-4 weeks before harvest to prevent them from splitting and harvest them after they turn yellow and before the first frost if at all possible.

As for growing them up a trellis, I am sure it can be done since they are commonly grown out of hanging baskets.
However, I do think that is for ornamental purposes only.
While I know that you can grow the vine up, since it is a vine and its related to the morning glory I would be surprised if the tubers will develop out of the ground since it is a tuber and grows downward into the soil.


http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=...tato+vines+vine&d=QpC3s0xISleW&icp=1&.intl=us

http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetables/p/Sweet-Potatoes.htm