Easiest Way to Grow Sweet Potatoes
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- Опубліковано 18 лют 2022
- In this video I take you step by step through last years sweet potato season. I'll show you three easy ways to make sweet potato slips. How to root sweet potato slips and how to plant sweet potato slips. I'll show you how to fertilize sweet potatoes for maximum production and then end the video showing you a massive 70 pound harvest out of a very small space garden. I'll also tell you how to store sweet potatoes so they taste great and last a long time. Sweet potatoes are a great self sufficiency crop and after this video, you can't say you don't know how to grow them. Give them a try. They'll give you one of the most fun harvests!
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“I probably have too many for this bed but I’m going to do it anyway” - said every gardener 😂
😂😂
Liked the video immediately because he said “this video took one whole year in the making”. Props, because one whole year of video making is some real commitment and dedication. Super educational and informative.
I put a store bought sweet potato in a bowl of water (covering about 1/4) for a couple weeks. It only produced about 4 slips, which I planted in a container. It grew vines with pretty green and purple leaves which I kept for aesthetic purposes. When winter came, it looked like the vines had all died and I assumed the experiment failed. But when I started to dig out the vines to plant something else, I found the container was FILLED with various sized sweet potatoes! I was so surprised!
The squirrel planting the macadamia nut in the grow bed was so cute to me lol 🥰
Here in NZ we bury the whole sweet potato in light free draining soil in a warm place. When they produce the tipu (slips) they always have roots, being under the earth, and so we just gently pull them off. Being buried they also have a long stem before the leaves form, and this we bury/plant under the ground in a J shape, with the lower tip of the J pointing North, in the northern hemisphere it would point south. So its the same basic way, but this way enables the growing of a long stem and roots so it doesnt need to be trimmed and rooted in water. The tipu/slips can be planted straight away, or put in water if you arent ready to plant them out yet. Planting with a J means the sweet potatoes form nearer the surface, rather than deeply, so are easier to harvest. Both ways work, clearly from the magnificent harvest you have.
Wow! That's cool
Great tip!
Thanks!
I grew up calling them tipu’s and we grew a lot of them. They grow rampant and climb/cover a lot of ground with foliage. Staple source for Kiwis… My favourite.
I'm in Christchurch amd I usually cut one potato horizonally and put both halves on top of the soil/sand mixture about 1 cm deep only. I have just harvested this year's as we had minus 1 last night. I am trying both ways for this year's slips. One half way in the soil and one completely buried with a germinating mat under them.
I grow frommy own slips. I've tried cutting one horizonally and using both halves to create my slips the root in water before planting. I've also put a whole one halfway into the soilto grow myslips butthis year trying a fully buried and and one half buried to see which provides more slips. I'm not getting very fat sweet potatoes yet I fertilise with a seaweed fertiliser every 1-2 weeks during growing.
I started a light colored sweet potato in water back in 2/2021. It set sprouts all year. In fact, I still have the potato in the jar of water . It has two small shoots. I have started a few new sweet potatoes this year in potting soil and will see how they do. From my water rooted sweet potato I did grow many sweet potatoes. the biggest was 4lbs 10 oz!!!! It was delicious!
Wow thats crazy it's lasted so long
Water rooted sweet potato…hmm🤔…sounds interesting…please go on.
@ Deborah Marlewski. I also started my slips in water, then experimented with the soil starts. Personally I preferred the soil method. I got a lot more sprouts from the soil. Good luck with your project and have another bountiful harvest.🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
@@kenp8991 just put the bottom of the sweet potato in water. Eventually the potato will set roots. Then it will begin to form sprouts from the potato. Once these sprouts are 4-6 inches long, pull them off the potato and set in water. These will also set roots. Once roots are formed you are ready to plant your sweet potato slips.
@@deborahmarlewski6786 I took cuttings from my sweet potato vines and they rooted. I saw where they had rooted in the soil, so I pulled them out and stuck them in water and had more slips. I also use the tiny sweet potatoes that didn't mature for starters. In my 3'x5' raised bed, I got quite a few pounds of potatoes just by winding try he vines around the bed and burying them. It's like buried treasure of when it's harvest time.
I put mine in dirt last week! Fingers crossed that I’ll grow my own slips! Last year I bought 12 slips and grew over 90lbs in a raised bed! I sounded just as excited as you all!! ❤️ so glad gardening season is upon us 😁
It's fun right!?
Awesome! How big was the raised bed?
@@erika-py7ih 4’ x 16’ open at the bottom
@@tiffanyhooley5052 thanks so much! Looking forward to lots of potatoes :)
@@NextLevelGardening I planted sweet potato this year,let see how many I get.🙌🏻🌹
Your video is the one I watched last year to figure out how to plant my sweet potatoes. I grow slips in the soil in aluminum foil loaf pans with holes poked in the bottom. I grew slip’s for months! I planted out beds each time I got enough slips. I had a continuous harvest from August through December and overwintered some plants indoors. I greatly appreciate your work! Congrats on your harvest!!
In my experience:
Sweet potatoes are amazingly easy to grow, great for fledgling gardeners such as myself. If you have a Whole Foods near you, they should have at least 3 and maybe 5 varieties, I suggest growing some of each.
We had our first season (Japanese sweet potato) get well out of the area they volunteered to grow in our compost heap. And apparently they will set new roots and produce potatoes wherever the vines lay on the ground long enough. Our first harvest was like a treasure hunt. Apparently we had missed some roots or small potatoes, and they ran rampant across a bigger section of our back yard the second season, we just did not have the heart to stop them, but... Harvesting them was a search and destroy mission that second fall, with another huge harvest. We did get our yard back, and this year I will plant them in well contained areas in pots with a trellis for those vines.
As for water sprouting them: It seems that it all depends on the potato. I started this spring with 6 organic Hannah White sweet potatoes. I currently have 5 in water, one was rotting and has been discarded. Of the 5 after 2 weeks I have one producing abundant roots and several slips, and the rest are just sitting there, all wet and doing nothing but growing a few roots or none at all. In my experience it depends on the potato, not the method nor the amount of light, of growing slips. I may well do an experiment of methods with multiple potatoes in each group. 😜
Let me tell you how dad did it.make a small bed about 4x6 place a thin lake of straw on the ground, then lay all your small sweet potatoes on the straw, then cover the 🥔 potatoes with more straw, then cover with soil. Cover bed with plastic the plastic will form monster that will water the potatoes 🥔 an sit back an get ready to have fun.
L no p
@@ronaldhagan2373 thanks!!
@@ronaldhagan2373
I'm going to take your advice! Monster water should do great! 🙃
For the most delicious way to prepare sweet potatoes, and so easy, is to wash your sweet potatoes, then split them in half lengthwise, and lay them cut side down on a parchment lined cookie sheet...nothing else! Bake them at about 400 to 425 degrees until you see the dark syrup start to bubble out from under them. Place them on a plate, flesh side up, add butter and eat the best sweet potato ever! I learned this from video I watched, and I don't know WHY they taste so amazing cooked like this, but they do! So, if you like sweet potatoes you just gotta' try it and see for yourself! And also, I love to have cranberry sauce sometimes with sweet potatoes, because you don't need to wait for the holidays and those two things are so good together! And thanks for your interesting and informative videos! kristi
I'm really glad to see your kids involved in your videos and growing foods. It's something that's not taught as their electronic devices usually tend to be the center of most kids'lives. Gardening is a forever skill.
I've been starting my slips in potting soil for the last few years; since I started growing sweet potatoes. I save the "too small to eat" sweet potatoes from my harvest, and use those to grow slips. I live in northern Indiana, plant outside in May, harvest in October or November. Since I have a tiny garden, I trellis the vines so they don't take over the whole garden, and so the vines get more sun. One comment on the video, you can put all of those slips directly into damp potting soil.
This is so exciting! I am definitely going to try that!
What Ag zone are you? Our last frost date was the last week of May in the 1980s, it's earlier now but I'm not sure. Are they frost tolerant?
I started my planting camotes yesterday becouse i excited like ive watching your doing in camote tops and a good crops
@@jturtle5318 According to another video I watched.... NO. Not at all frost tolerant because they are actually a tropical vine.
I started growing sweet potatoes by just cutting the chunks with sprouts off an organic sweet potatoes left too long in the cupboard and sticking them in the ground. I was away 7 months during the lockdown; when I returned, the garden was half taken over by sweet potatoes plants. I let them grow. Like you in the video, when fall came, I got at least 75 lbs harvest. Now I can't stop them from coming in each year.
I moved some to under my fruit trees where they can have the run of the place. This provides double benefit as it keeps the area under the trees free from weeds, and the vines look beautiful (triple benefit I guess when you count the harvest).
Suggestion: add a digging fork to the video. My soil has a lot of clay; the digging fork makes it way easier to get them out.
Holy Sweet potatoes, Batman! That is a lot of sweet potatoes after being neglected for 7 months! Your soil must be perfect for them. Very cool!
Definitely, I will be growing them again this year. My challenge will be finding a space large enough since the 10 gallon grow bags didn’t give the tubers enough space (planting one slip per grow bag). Two slips gave me 15 pounds of potatoes.
Looked more like a scorpion lol. I am a massive fan of growing them in soil. I made a similar video last year about growing slips and had the same findings., I grow loads of slips every year. Such a fantastic harvest and a brilliant video Brian. Excellent stuff. Oh just for ref I dropped your channel into the resources section in my book ;) catch you soon matey
Saw that. Great video! .Yeah.. soil for me. Wow thanks Tony. When does the book come out?
@@NextLevelGardening I am hoping at the end of April mate. not long after yours. I am waiting on the foreword but ts coming from Dr Elaine Ingham and she is a busy lady so I don't want to rush her. I will hold it off if I need too
I thought so too!
@@MikeR65 Absolutely the way to go. and Brian proves this just as I did with practical exercises.
@@simplifygardening You chose the perfect perfect person to write the foreword for your book.
I know nothing of her writing ability/style (etc), but she has a very important message for all of us and I really think the best thing for all the world would be for her to be a featured guest of EVERY farming, gardening, and homesteading (and prepping) channel on UA-cam and even on other platforms.
Her message is vital to the future of food production.
Thank you for seeking her input.
I’m growing sweet potatoes for the first time. We live in Saskatchewan, Canada. I used the tooth pick in water on a heating pad. From 6 sweet potatoes I’ve gotten 32 starters. I do have them planted in pots in dirt. So far I’m really thrilled to see what they will do!
I have been starting my own slips for the last 7 years since I retired. I first saw how to grow slips while I was waiting to pickup a load sweet potatoes in Calif. for one of the big grocery chains. I saw some low tunnels in a field close to the parking lot of the packing shed and wandered out to checked them out. They were covering sweet potatoes that a 5 man crew was picking slips to take back to root. I have started 5 different varieties in potting mix on the 15th of February. I have had real good luck with growing them and extras I trade with family and neighbors. I grow in raised beds and this will be the second season that I will also use grow bags.
What size of a grow bag do you use and how many do you plant in each one?
Been gardening for 2 years here. This will be my first year to try growing sweet potatoes. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise!
You're welcome. Good luck! 🙂
I did your dirt method to start one last year Never grew sweet potatoes before because I'm in zone 4 ..Wow it started great, i planted outside when warm. the vine was beautiful, and to my surprise, I had huge sweet potatoes in the fall !! starting my this years crop now!!
Great!
I live in Newburgh N.Y and this is my 3rd year growing sweet potatoe slips. I always start then on their side in plastic container in potting soil. I water them good and put the whole container ontop of my hot water heater in my furnace room. Once they start growing I take off about 10 slips a day. They love the bottom heat. And I add water about every other day. That's the fastest way to start them. Just love them.
Sounds great!
Thanks for this comment. I've scoured this and several other videos and you're the first person to add that one needs to actually water the dirt. That is so helpful.
This will be my first time ever growing Sweet Potatoes, I had to order my slips to get started, no organic sweet potatoes were available in my area, to start slips from. From my ordered slips this year I will be able to use the harvested and stored potatoes to grow slips from for next year. I order I placed has three different varieties so I can choice the one which, grows, stores and tastes better. Watching your segment on sweet potatoes has been very informative and helps build my confidence on growing them this year. Your videos are Awesome and so enjoyable. Thank You.
I love Tammy's enthusiasm for the sweet potato harvest! I honestly was not planning on growing sweet potatoes, but I may give them a shot now that I have seen how! :)
Great work! As you see, the vines are super vigorous! Plant the slips out without any roots and they'll still take lol!
Planting them out before roots develop also encourages root spread and reduces the amount of curved and circular tubers.
Love seeing more people planting sweet potato, keep up the great work!
Yep. Most folks don't know you do NOT have to put the slips in water and wait for roots. Just stick the bare slips in the ground, make sure they are watered well (but don't turn the bed into a bog of course) the first week or so, and done.
In The Philippines we raise the sweet potatoes for the vines. We cut the tops about every week and cook them like spinach. We do get huge roots as well. We plant the rooted slips about 18 inches apart. We can harvest the vines for about a year. I also root the tubers in straight water. We do get a lot of rotted tubers and l will try your vitamin C method the next time l set the tubers for sprouting. Thank you for sharing.
This is exactly the video that I needed to find today!! I forgot about a purple sweet potato in water and it’s gone crazy. I love being able to see what the next steps are. I really appreciate you putting all of this in one spot for me, and for taking the time it took to do it! They’re rooting now!!
WHOA that harvest was wild!!! Now I don’t even know where to put these hahaha
Best growing video yet! Informative from start to finish. Thank you Brian!
Thank you!
Yeah, I love the year long format, even though I’m sure it’s a ton of planning and preparation.
I agree with Jolene. Very informative. Now I’m very excited about trying these myself because you have gone through the whole process and not just given me snippets during the growing process. That’s very frustrating when I get just snippets and not know how to do the whole process. Thank you so much.
Always!! Thank you for the trials and tips.
Jolene, I must say I agree!!
Brian is the best. He goes from point A to Z without mincing words! He is clear and easy to follow! I have four slips in the ground, I am months late… But the experiment is grand for next season. Thank you Jolene and thank you Brian!
We just harvested 65 lbs from our backyard. This was our second try. Last year we had 30 lbs. Ours are purple ube yams. Very cool.
Wow! That's awesome!
The harvesters of sweet potatoes are the happiest people on the internet. Lol
I put in 14 slips in a 30 x 15 area. They grew in my very heavy clay and it took me 3 to 4 days to dig them out. I got more than a wheelbarrow full. Only growing a few slips to give to friends. After giving around 30 sweet potatoes away and what we already ate, I have too many. I'm going to can about 10 quarts and 10 pints and give the rest to Second Harvest Food Bank. Harvest of sweet potatoes, not too sweet, but too many! God bless and keep growing.
You made this look so easy. Never grown before. I am going to give this a try. Thank you
I am in Melbourne Australia and I grew them in big black pots, got such a fantastic harvest last year I did two pots this year! Can’t wait to see how many I get this year, and all from watching this channel! Thanks Brian
Last year (2023) I grew slips in potting soil and had AMAZING success with the slips. They grew a ton, and fast! I DIDN'T get a lot of potatoes after planting - but we had a really weird growing season this past sunmer, so I wasn't surprised.
I DID do a funny experiment. I had a store bought sweet potato start to sprout, so I stuck it in a bed in our greenhouse (half way buried) and just let it go without cutting off the slips. Amazingly, I had MORE sweet potatoes grow off that ONE "seed" potato, than I did with ANY of the slips I've planted before in the ground! Additionally - the vines that grew off the "seed" potato, where they touched the ground, rooted and grew MORE sweet potatoes! I'm going to do that again this year (2024) and see what happens!
Love that you still use pounds in the states instead of kilograms. Thanks for the vids. I will definitely be growing sweet potatoes 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
I’m growing sweet potatoes this year from slips from Johnny’s Selected seeds. Thank you for covering how to grow your own slips so that I can hopefully use the sweet potatoes I grow to start slips for next years garden 👏
I have new raised bed this year. First time sprouting and planting sweet potatoes. So excited now after watching your video!! Thanks for the excellent tutorial. Will hope to see great harvests for both of us!
Good luck! 🙂
Yes and yes-- Not only sweet potatoes but this year I am trying yams. A few weeks ago. i purchased two different yams from our farmer's market. One is showing signs of slips, -- Ray Delbury Sussex County NJ USA
Nice!
Thanks to your info, I grew purple sweet potatoes in two medium sized pots. I started late spring but I still got MANY slender DELICIOUS SWEET POTATOES. EVEN THE EXTREMELY SLENDER STICKS WERE SO DELISH!!! Just scrub the skin with a brush in water bucket , rinse and cook with skins on. Eat with skins on… yum!! Doing it again this year in a humongous pot about 3 feet by almost 3 feet high. Thanks again!
Great video and perfect timing, thanks. My favorite part was when you found the "macadamia nut, planted by a squirrel", how cute is that!?!?
So funny. I have them at the new house too
I purchased sweet potatoes from Whole Foods and one started sprouting almost immediately. I stuck it sideways in seed starter soil and I ended up with 16 slips. I'm patiently waiting to harvest sweet potatoes maybe in April. I dug around a bit beneath the vines and I can see baby sweet potatoes have formed.
Gerry, you did a “pick-a-boo on your baby potatoes”…. LOL
After two months of curing 'em, home grown baked Hannah variety sweet potatoes as a side dish for dinnner tonight. Wow. tastiest dang sweet potatoes ever. I picked some early when they were still kind of small but they taste sooooooo good. Now I am going to harvest the rest of the patch.
I planted sweet potato with my students. I didn’t realize I needed to pull the slips off to root. I will be doing that next week with my class. Thank you!
I tried last year in a very large container. The vines took over everything and only ended up with one huge and one tiny. Can you trim to vines back?
This video came at the perfect time! We just bought some organize sweet potatoes to start our slips and I wasn't very confident in which way to do it. Thank you so much! We're really excited to get this project going.
Yes, potting sweet potatoes today. Successfully grew slips from organic, store bought & purchased last year. Will purchase & use home grown slips this year as well, because I like different color potatoes. 😁
Great!
I live in Canada and didn't used to think I couldn't grow them here. But once I learned to start the slips early from organic sweet potatoes, I found I could grow them just as big as what you harvested down south.
That's great!
I. Had. Sweet potatoes in my first garden last year. Can't hardly wait🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗
Yay!
Should you trim the vine of leaves if it gets overwhelming? I heard someone say that they had mountains of leaves but not many potatoes. I started one in soil about two weeks ago and I don’t have any roots yet. A couple of new bumps on the potato though. I love Tammy’s excitement 😁
My mom uses the long vines to plant the next batch. She pulls most of the leaves except for the little growing tip, th m buries de long vine so that it becomes part of the root system. This way she gets several sweet potatoes from each plant
Sounds like possibly using too much fertilizer with nitrogen instead of the middle number phosphorus.
Awesome!!!
We will be trying to grow sweet potatoes for the first time this summer. We are in zone 3 and our last frost date is June 2. I've ordered some Coventry sweet potatoes from a local seed company. They're the only company I've found that carries a cool climate variety. We'll be getting 5 slips sent to us when it'll be safe to plant them in our area. I'm planning to plant them in grow bags set near the south side of the house for a sheltered microclimate. I'm looking forward to seeing how they do. Especially after seeing how crowded that bed was!
I would be very interested in hearing how this works out for you, as I am in zone 3 myself. Keep us posted, ok?😁
Interested in how you made out...have you harvested yet?
@@nsmellowyellow1 No. Unfortunately, we have had a terrible growing year, beginning with a long, cold spring followed by flooding. Much of our garden is at least a month behind, and some things are not really making it at all. The sweet potato plants are much smaller than they should be. So far, we have not had frost, so I'm leaving them as long as possible before I dig them up to see what we've got. I have low expectations right now.
@@kimadams2995 Well, I finally took a look, after we had our first frost. I got a handful - literally one handful - of tiny sweet potatoes. They were smaller than most fingerling potatoes.
People on local gardening groups have posted photos of their successful sweet potato harvests, so I k now it's not our short growing season that's at issue. We just had such a terrible spring, we had quite a few losses in the garden this year.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your videos! Thank you - and my plants thank you!
I started with one sweet potato with lots of "node spots" on it. I put it in the fridge for a week or so, then in some potting soil. It grew sprouts similar to yours.
I took each of those sprouts and cut them between each leaf creating a bunch of slips each about 2" long. I literally stuck them in the ground (Zone 10a) I prepped to grow them in, covered everything but the leaf in a few inches of mulch and watered them in. I watered every day for about a week, then weaned to every other day, then occasionally. They all took off gangbusters. I love sweet potatoes 😂
I just grew some in a black costco tub and the entire foliage ended up growing up and over the chicken pen, it was awesome! Fun experiment, I think they're ready to harvest 🤞🏼
I will be planting SP (sweet potatoes) again this year. It was a fun vegetable to start and harvest. Can't wait to expand our SP area to grow 3x as much- we LOVE sweet potatoes!
Me too! 😋
I'm so excited to grow sweet potatoes this year! I grew them in water when I was a kid for the fun of it but never took it to the next step to plant the slips. Thanks for the helpful video!
You're welcome 😊
I grew one as an ornamental climbing vine as a kid and it shaded our front porch for the summer keeping us cool on those hot southern days :D
@@sillyme8302 That's a great idea! Thanks for sharing that. We get blinded on our deck in the evening because of the sun in the west. Growing sweet potatoes on poultry netting would be an easy way to cut down on the glare and heat.
Your three test methods was GREAT! I will never do #1 again! ;-))
Couple years ago I noticed a sweet potato on my counter was sprouting. I did not have any idea what to do but guessed to but each slip in water to root and later planted them. What fun!
I live in Mcminnville, OR
Amazing harvest! Thank you for taking the time to document this entire process. These beginning-to-end videos are the best for inexperienced gardeners like me! May I ask when did you start growing the slips? (I live in the LA area so should be able to follow the same time table.) Thank you so much!
Thank you for the great video on getting the sweet potatoes started. I'm in zone 7 and have my potatoes in clear containers with soil. Will try an experiment this year to see which will give me more potatoes at the end of the year. Planting the whole sweet potato into the garden with its slips still attached or planting the slips on their own.
Sweet potatoes have to be the easiest thing ever to grow. I use the toothpick method and have always had great luck. I like to grow them inside as a houseplant. The vines are so pretty.
Here in the Caribbean it’s easy to get your slips from mature plants, since we don’t have to deal with frost 👍
What a GREAT video! I'm getting my slips anyday now in Zone 5b. Next year, I can start my own, thanks to you and your son's very detailed information. This is my first year doing sweet potatoes and am trying a Japanese version that is supposed to have a shorter growing season, and growing them in an old horse trough. I am so excited to try this!! Still have to work on getting a higher Phosphorous fertilizer. Thank you!!
You clearly inspired me to grow my own sweet potato slips this year. I got 6 organic sweet potatoes to try. Like you I am going to use the potting soil method for sure.
I'm living in UK I would love to know how to start sweet potato from scratch.
Hello, I am new to your channel I live in West Central Florida. Zone 9 b and grew my slips in soil, that is the fastest way to grow slips, I am growing them in a container, I planted my slips back in December, brought them inside when it got too cold still in my container growing, waiting for the leaves to die back to harvest.
Sounds good!
I'm growing my slips right now, any potatoes and sweet potatoes that I take to long to eat and they sprout I keep them for my Seed potatos...this is my first year going sweet potatoes ,I've grown regular potatoes a couple times. I'm hoping for a years worth of both for 2 people and I'll be more then happy...
BTW 70lbs is something to be proud of ! Congrats to you both on that success 🙌
Thank you!
I don't know how big your property is. I tried to do that math once. I estimated that a potato could grow a plant, which could produce 3 to 5 potatoes - on average, as some plants may fail, and other plants produce well. So I figured 1 plant may yield big & small potatoes, and 1 plant's yield could be enough for 1 day's food. Baked, fried, steamed, in soups, whatever. I wanted to have about 400 potato plants, planning for some failure, for a 365 day supply. 12 inches between plants, 18 inches between rows. 20 plants per row, 20 rows. Well, I don't own that much real estate. Then I thought that I could use 5 gallon buckets. 2 seed potatoes per bucket. I could get 400 hundred buckets. Nope. No way. I can't find the space for 400 buckets. Good luck with your plans to grow a year's supply of potatoes and sweet potatoes.
I’m growing potatoes for the first time EVER!! I’m starting wit purple and Yukon but I’m doing sweet potato next yeah since they take longer. Sweet potato plants are soo pretty. Your videos always have the most perfect timing for me, thank youuuu!!!! 🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠🍠 (would love to hear tips on storing veggies and fruits like potatoes, onions, garlic and stuff 😁)
Potatoes are a different plant than sweet potatoes. Cooler weather tolerant. Harvest when the greens die. Not as much weight in the roots.
Sweet potatoes really get going in the warm weather. They kept going until you cut the vines or it freezes. You will be digging up potatoes from places you didn’t even plant! Invasive food.
@@scottcampbell7944 "Invasive food."
I love that. What a "problem" to have! (Especially these days.)
Well dang! I'm going to go pick up an organic sweet potato today and start. Love the idea of the sideways bottle. Did you cut drain holes in them or just be careful not to over water. We have been popping our compostable materials into the future garden space all year so Yay. Thank you for this. I've grown them for plants when I was young but love to eat them, so this is perfect.
I would just go ahead and plant your first sweet potatoes. not too deep. Cut off the first slips and root them for a few weeks to propagate them. You can keep doing that for a few months and you will still get new vines and potatoes out of the original potatoes! Sweet potatoes are so easy.
@@scottcampbell7944 it's in a planter inside. Still freezing some nights & snow today. Thank you!
Yes, I am growing sweet potatoes, and potatoes. Got seed potatoes today. And thank goodness you tried 3 different mediums. It's gonna be great!!! Thank you very much
I planted slips last year.
Though I made a mistake.. unknowingly.. and harvested too soon. Though not complaining.
This year.. currently.. trying to get slips started. I will be more aware of When they get transplanted.
I always want to know how much rooting goes on with my plants, so I can know how much room to give them. So, after my harvest I took a few pictures of developing roots/sweet potatoes..and was amazed. Now I know How they grow, and what I need to do this year to maximize the harvest.
OMG loved your video and will do same -realize I just didn’t start my sweet potatoes early enough last year -had tiny potatoes and paid for each plant ! Thx for sharing 🤗
You're welcome!
Hi & thank you for all your sharing tips, few questions. Can you use Azomite dust inside the planting hole instead of crab n lobster? Also where you stated 8 was too many for that particular planter, what is the proper spacing for sweet patatoe slips to yield a good crop? Love your channel & Thanks again.
Azomite is great at replacing trace minerals into your soil but is not useful or should not be substituted for fertilizer.
I've tried so often to grow sweet potatoes, but the dirt method is working well for me ,so far... thanks for showing how !!❤
Nice experiment. Here's a few pointers for next time. You'll find you really only need a third of the potato, eat the rest of it. Roots will form quicker that way as well. Don't plant slips with developed roots if you want the most and the straightest roots. Any damage to roots and they will only develope as fibrous roots and not storage roots. Don't use the first inch of the slip or better yet, cut above the soil line to better prevent disease spread. Bury 3 to 5 nodes. You can soak in water until you just start to see roots starting, but not needed. Potash is actually even more important for root growth than phosphorus. Happy gardening!
Can you clarify what you mean by "don't use the first inch of the slip"
@@alsinvag8194 the part of the slip that attached to the sweet potato has a greater chance of carrying diseases. Don't use the first inch. If grown in soil, cut above the soil.
I’ve rooted and now have several stems that are three inches long. My swt. potatoes are Japanese purples! I’m looking forward to these beauties growing and they will be in pots this year.
Thanks for all of the content you share. You are now my go to inspiration and information channel!
That’s awesome! I started mine in January with the half into soil method. The slips are growing crazy. This will be my first year. How far apart should I plant them? Do I have to wait until my last frost has passed or are they okay in some cold? Great video, thanks for the info. 👩🌾
Sweet potatoes are a warm weather crop, wait until after your last frost to plant. I grow mine in zone 5b. My biggest sweet potato I didn't weigh, but it was "as big as your head".
Sell your house. Move. Relocate to a warmer climate.
Impressive video chalked full of valuable info. PLUS, the outstanding backdrop of your new homestead.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for this video! I had a sweet potato sitting in water for a few weeks with only a couple roots when I started watching this video. By the end of your video I had transferred that potato into some potting soil. That was two weeks ago and the difference is AMAZING!!! I can see loads of roots AND so many sprouts are coming!!! I had to come back and tell you! This is so exciting! I'm not sure that I will actually get any sweet potatoes since I am in Canada, but I am going to try!
Can you get your hands on a small rubbermaid-type trash barrel? (New would be best.) Or a big tote?
You can grow those sweet-potatoes in that barrel or tote outdoors for as long as the weather holds good... THEN you can drag it indoors and keep it near a window to keep growing inside. You may have to trim vines a little bit for the indoors gardening, but that won't hurt the roots at all.
If you want to try this, I recommend getting a furniture dolly. You can put the barrel or tote on that and wheel it into the house... and also move it aside for cleaning.
Using a barrel or tote means harvesting is super simple. You lay a tarp on the floor and tip the container over, dump it out onto the tarp and go thru the soil to grab all the sweet-potatoes... easy-peasy. Then grab the four corners of the tarp and put the soil back into the barrel and you can wheel that outside now you're done with it. Cleanup is done.
I think this channel did a video about what kind of soil to use in containers, but to make it simple... it doesn't have to be Perfect... you can grow these in box-store organic potting soil. It works.
I hope you do get some sweet-potatoes this year.
Wow, this clip is awesome. I learned so much. Turned out my sweet potato was upside down in the glass of water. Instead of putting them in the right position, I popped them straight into potting soil. I can't wait to get some vines, hopefully it works. Tammy's harvest was insane!!!🙂
Good luck! 🙂
I did that too and just planted them, they did fine and I got a great harvest
Thank you for this video! I live in South Carolina, and I'm starting to plan my garden. I am confused about one thing. You said sweet potatoes need more phosphorus, and you used Neptune's Harvest Crab and Lobster Fertilizer. But the number on it is 5-3-0. It's higher in nitrogen. Explain please!😊
I'm in coastal SC. I'm interested to know too. I have never used the Neptune's Harvest but am willing to try their products.
Be careful with high nitrogen or you’ll get beautiful vines and not many sweet potatoes at all. The energy will go into the vines.
Thanks for all the advice I'm excited about growing my own sweet potatoes this year appreciate all your help
I had 3 extremely massive sweetpotatos and about 5 massive and several normal size a enough babies to plant this year. Overall I got 23 lbs. All from about 6 slips. They were bullies and took over the tomatoes and cucumbers. However. I think the sweet potatoes caused me to have a better havest of tomatoes. All of the tomato plants surrounded and being climbed by the vines were supper healthy and didn't need as much water. They also made the best restaurant style salsa we've ever had. My daughter accused me of going to a restaurant to buy their salsa
Wow! That's great!
Well I'm stoked to get started. Even doing my own experiment with jars vs potting mix. Thank you so much 💚
Can you split the seed potato in half long ways so you'll have 2 halves in the potting mixture? Would that double your slips?
I accidentally grew slips on a sweet potato last year. I found it, and I stuck the part of the potato with slips in some water to grow some roots. I got some really nice rooting and more growth on the slips. I planted them and got a moderate harvest. It was really fun, and it was a nice little accident I’d love to replicate. It’s awesome when it happens by accident! I would have not even tried growing them otherwise. ☺️
I've never had any success with sweet potatoes, but I will definitly try this method...
I started my slips similarly last year (love the Vit C tip! I had some rot😐), and had a huge patch of leaves (I did use some in stir-fry). But almost no harvest 😥 Like 1" diameter by 4-6" long. (In Sacramento, so frost only Dec-Feb as a rule, but not alot of heat fall/spring.)
Question: My husband grew up growing prolific sweet potatoes (in Belize, central Am). He said the vines (like grapes) will root wherever they touch soil (creating more roots, = more harvest). I mulched w/straw, and tried to push away and lightly cover parts of the vines with soil, but didn't seem to take... I know our soil is poor (alkaline, clay), though we amended a lot w/compost, peat moss, etc. Suggestions? I'm discouraged to even try again this year!
Diane
My soil is clay..... So I built an entire bed from scratch. Layered...
Cardboard
Leaves
Sticks
Shredded paper
Leaf mulch
Compost
About 12 " deep. I. Had a very huge harvest, some very large.
Just awesome!!!
I have grown out many sweet potatoes to sprout. I have also had just a many rot on me. I will try to also sprout the sweet potato with the largest end down.
I have put a half dozen in a small plastic container. I will also try the vitamin "C" idea as well. I did not realize that l could just cut off the rotten part of the sweet potato when trying to sprout them. Your methods seem to be far better than mine. Thank you for sharing such great success. I grow the sweet potatoes for their foliage, not the tubers themselves. The tubers are an added blessing. Thanks for an awesome channel and this awesome video.
Stay safe and stay blessed!
I haven't had much success with the purple sweet potato (Okinawan variety). I've gotten slips and I've also tried rooting them. IF you get a chance to try & grow Okinawan sweet potato - do let me know! Okinawan has purple flesh and white skin and the taste is out of this world!! sweet & nutty taste
Wish I’d seen this video on how to start my own slips before spending a fortune buying slips elsewhere! Thank you so much for the step by step instructions!
It took me two months to get slips - not sure why. Now that I have the slips, my wife and I are looking forward to growing our own sweet potatoes. Greta video and updates.
I grew sweet potatoes last year - from one potato. I just stuck it in the pot...Now I have one saved potato to start sprouts, which I'm doing today...right after my coffee. Thanks for a great video.
That's how mine grow. In the ground. I harvest the nice big ones. Eat them. The small ones, and the roots - I just leave them in the soil. They overwinter fine underground. Then as the weather warms again, they grow the next year's crop by starting their own slips.
They are tough. I didn’t know what I was doing so just put some whole sweet potatoes in a raised bed. I was lucky and they produced about 10 pounds which I ate. They were so very good. Looking forward to doing it right this time. ❤
Thanks for the wrap-up. Harvesting with your sister looked like a blast!
It was!
Oh yeah now I'll do that dirt from now on I'm still waiting on my sweet potatoes never again like that in the water thank you for showing me
okay, ya got me! who could resist after seeing your video?! i now have a spot reserved for my first batch of sweet potatoes.
Yay! 😁
Thank you for great tutorial! You answered my question about which part is the bottom part of the sweet potato. Thank you again :)!
Started my sweet potatoes in water! I’m going to try again in the soil like you suggested.
My very favorite of aallllll of your videos I've watched 😊 I have told so many people how that is the best way to grow sweet potato slips! Also love your son's cameo, he is such a mini you! ❤
Thank you!
I'm going to start my slits today. I appreciate your walking through all the steps. I've never grown them before. Thank you so much.
I’m going to try my hand at growing sweet potatoes this year and I’m SUPER excited! I lived in the Adirondack mountains for years & had a successful garden up there. Now I’m in east Texas & I‘ll be wingin it! Idk how the heat will affect it. Wish me luck!
Thank you so much for this video. My sweet potato is still sitting in water for 2wks now with no sprout. That has to change today 😄
Lol. Yup that was my experience
It worked! We grew our own slips, planted them and they actually made more lovely sweet potatoes. I love it❤. Thank you for showing us how.
You are such a good teacher! I’m looking at foreign sweet potatoes…wondering what a slip was ! What a teacher. I’m now ready to start growing some slips…..yoo hoo. Thanks for the good info…
I am in Virginia and I grow sweet potatoes in large buckets on my deck. The first year I harvested the largest Sweet potatoes and left the roots and small tubulars in the buckets. The following spring new plants started to sprout on their own before I planted new plants.
Yes grew the slips and then grew sweet potatoes