Hi. If you build little micro-climates using rock sculptures in your beds, they will emit heat down into the soil. This helps keep the soil warm during cooler night time temperatures. I use this technique here in my outdoor and greenhouse gardens here in East TN. On cool nights in the greenhouse, there is no need for hoops either, I just throw my landscape frost fabric right over the sculptures and they keep the cloth off the plants. I also used it in South Central Wyoming, when I lived there, to grow cool weather crops outdoors. It works great! ;)
My favorite method! I planted 1 slip per 14 watering pots as an experiment. I did not expect anything because all the videos had people using much larger containers. I myself grew a full storage tote last year with great success. In fact my raised bed ones didn't do anywhere near as well last year. So this year and last we had an especially dry and hot summer here in Nebraska. My little 10 inch watering pots seemed impossible to keep watered enough and most of the plants weren't that impressive. One died. I ended up with an entire roasting pan full of potatoes! Digging for sweet potato treasure remains my favorite garden task.
I’m in a sweet potato zone, and was gifted some purple variety slips a couple of years ago. I’ve been growing only with that stock since then. I was wringing my hands because when I planted my slips in 5 gallon containers, they were pretty scrawny. But WOW, I just harvested some and I got some beautiful big tubers! Thanks in no small part to the wonderful education and inspiration you are giving us, Gardener Scott! I’d never heard of buying slips until recently. I thought everybody got them at the grocery store. I had no idea slips were that expensive to purchase. I’m going to cure them this year for a good long time. Last year I left them outside for 6 weeks or so, overwhelmed with things to do, and they were still deliciously sweet!!
Were the big tubers from a 5 gallon bucket, or the ground? I tried growing a slip in a 10 gallon tub and mine were scrawny as well. I live in FL so the right temperature is not an issue.
Here in Ky I just transplant the volunteer slips from last yrs yams they seem to get hardier or acclimated to the area and they even will grow wild here
I found out this summer sweet potato leaves are a favorite for salads and greens because they are super mild and will grow well in the heat without getting bitter.
I'm from the Philippines living in Canada for 38 years. My whole family are very happy harvesting sweet potato leaves. Since we have a short summer, able to harvest leaves is a treat...
One major thing I learned growing sweet potatoes last year is they need direct sunlight all day, no shade. So the amount of sunlight affects the size of the potato. Perhaps if youre able to use slips from your homegrown potatoes they’ll get acclimated to a shorter growing season. Sweet potatoes can be used to help break up soil. They can grow in some pretty poor soils. Don’t forget to eat the leaves and tender ends of the vines. Often stir fried.
I am near TN in Kentucky and grew sweet potatoes last year for first time. We had a hot summer with little rain. From one sweet potato that I got slips from grew a lot of big sweet potatoes. Five months later I was impressed. They are so much fun to dig up 😅
Even when they're small, they're super tasty! Last year I planted my homegrown slips in 3 areas: in a raised bed, in a giant ceramic pot, and in grow bags. All three looked healthy and strong, but the ones in the bed were scavenged by voles. The grow bags had the best results producing small but succulent beauties that lasted throughout the winter.
The secret to growing large sweet potatoes is lose soil and consistent moisture. I grow mine in hills, covered, with black plastic, and a soaker hose. One year I grew 8 pound sweet potatoes. If I had harvested them earlier they of course would have been smaller. They were not only beautiful but very tasty. Sweet potatoes do not require a lot of fertilizer. I hope this helps.
I grew a bunch this year but because my soil was too rich and high and nitrogen they didn't put on hardly any roots. My best part was near the path with more wood chips, firmer soil, and less nitrogen. The other bed I did was in some of my poorer soil and the slips were started later and they did better. This has been my experience, they love relatively poor fertility and they do well even in very hard soil. Maybe that will help. I'm also in Tennessee so we have the weather for growing them.
This is my kind of video. Never thought to grow a sweet potato before, and never knew I could root stems from one either. Looking forward to trying this out in a few months. Hi from Northern Ireland 👋
It's worth experimenting with them, but they really like hot weather and warm nights. Give them the warmest microclimate you've got, if you want to get good results.
I've already got jars of slips all over in the house for next year. And I also have some planted in big pots indoors, as well as the original sweet potatoes the slips r from growing in pots. I got the originals from a local colorado farmer who shares many of his crops at the local church food bank. I love sweet potatoes! Ur awesome gardener Scott! ☺
I watched a video from another gardener here on UA-cam earlier this summer about growing sweet potatoes (The Millennial Gardner is his channel) and he had a great tutorial on how to grow your own slips. I decided after watching that to try it myself in the spring when the frost is over. I'm in NC and they grow a lot of sweet potatoes here (and I love sweet potatoes). Glad to have your video added to compare more notes from various gardeners.
Thank You. When you said "piping hot" brought a smile to my face and a load of memories. My grandmother used to say the same thing when something came out of the oven until now, I had not heard anyone else use that phrase.
Because I usually buy organic sweet potatoes at the grocery store, and they often sprout, I start a lot of sweet potato slips each year. I hardly ever grow a sweet potato that's larger than a large egg. It's typically very dry here in early summer, and although daytime temperatures can be hot, at night it gets chilly. Like yours, the sweet potatoes I grow taste good, and I get a lot of them. My dogs love them, too, and they think it's a great treat to have some roasted sweet potato chunks mixed with their food.
I cut a sweet potato in half and put both halves in water until I saw good roots. I was just growing it for decoration in my flower pot. It grew very long finger potatoes. I ate them just like any other sweet potato. 👍
Sweet potatoes love acid. I had them growing in almost pure peet moss mended with 2 week old chicken manure and they did well. They also love sun. When I brought my slips out I thought I would have to harden them off to my harsh Florida sun, but they loved it and really took off. You can eat the leaves of sweet potatoes as well. I've had them in salads and as a replacement to lettuce on roast beef sandwiches. The small sweet potatoes I like to eat raw, they taste and have a similar texture to a raw carrot. The only major issue I've run into is that rabbits will eat the vines and leaves.
Minus the small size, that looks like a decent crop of sweet potatoes. I'm in Alberta, and we have a similar weather to Colorado. Certain things do need the right climate to grow. I've tried growing other things I've bought in a grocery store, and sometimes they were a success. Other times, it's not possible, due to growth inhibitors, like you mentioned. Cheers, Scott! ✌️
Excellent video! It’s great to experiment with different crops and ideas in the garden! Another possibility for the smaller tubers could be this variety was chosen for high yield commercial production. But without the typical long hot sweet potato climate, the tubers didn’t get the chance to bulk up like they would with ideal conditions. So you got the tuber formation, but maybe not enough time to size up.
Buy from the grocery store. Put standing vertical in a mason jar half covered with water. Stand on the edge of a window. When the slips grow out about six inches or so cut the potato long wise in two to four pieces with slips, potato and some of the roots on each piece (I use scissors to cut through the roots) Plant in the garden. Have grown a ton of sweet potatoes doing this. They take of really fast because the nice set of roots already developed.
You did great. Finger size can be eaten, too. Loose soil seems to help both formation and harvesting. I began my journey with sweet potatoes only this year in zone 8a. Amazingly, I got two harvests off the same vines plus I ate the greens throughout the summer as well. I realize that the tubers can even grow more tubers underneath them. So with a big enough containers, (I had 15 gallon) there was enough room. A frost came and I covered them in plastic. An inspection of damage seeing the leaves, I thought some died, but digging underneath the mulch, I saw they are still quite alive. For the pot, I did hügelkultur with branches, sticks and leaves at the bottom to keep everything moist, and on top, really loose soil with a little sand. Out of five store bought organic potatoes, I got hundreds of slips, many I give away. Out of the five 15 gallon containers and 17 plants (3 -4 per pot) I got four harvests for a side dish of sautéed greens and 40 pounds of sweet potatoes. The first harvest in August was about 30 pounds of mostly average and large sweet potatoes. The second harvest (I left the vines) in November was about 20 pounds of mostly very small tubers. I did not fertilize with anything but kitchen scrap compost tea. It's my first year and I didn't know what I was doing, but I will definitely appreciate these under-rated plants because even I got a harvest, with no experience and good weather.
Thank you! You’re a good teacher giving visual examples really help. I really enjoy your videos too. I’m a Master gardener too from zone 6a . Thanks again.
I accidentally planted sweet potatoes in my garden bed back in April. (I live in Las Vegas) This is my first attempt at gardening on my own. I had a sweet potato from the store that I didn't eat and it was going bad so I chopped it up and threw it in my raised bed that I was prepping but hadn't actually planted anything. I figured it could break down like a natural compost. When the seeds of my actual intended plants started sprouting, I was surprised to see a vine plant that I had not planted. I ended up moving them to their own bed. I haven't harvested yet but I have 3 large plants that I have loved watching grow. We will see what the results are in a little more time!! Thank you for your videos Gardener Scott! I've been learning a ton from you!
Growing slips from store bought organic sweet potatoes does indeed work, but the problem is you don't know what variety your growing. In your zone, it's to your advantage to one-time purchase specific slips that require a shorter growing season. Then each year you can use your own short season variety to grow the upcoming season's slips. Another trick I use in my zone 5, is to warm the soil with black plastic a couple of weeks before planting.
We grow A LOT of sweet potatoes. The hardest part is to keep them away from the chickens, ducks, rabbits and deers. We eat the leaves and stems and don't care too much about the tubers. Most of the time we don't even dig them up. They are great for loosening our heavy Houston Black Clay. Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas but look at Asian cuisine for a rich portfolio of sweet potato recipes. Cook the stems with strips of lamb and peppers and and the leaves with a bit of garlic and you got yourself a gourmet meal that you will not find in any five star restaurant.
Do it again next year Scott. I’ve grown sweet potatoes for years always buying the slips. This year I started my own same as you, it was easy and so much great nutritious food for the effort. Nice video!
Sweet potatoes are also a wonderful treat for dogs. Feed them sparingly, because they are pretty high in simple carbs. They should be cooked... raw they can eventually wear down the dog's teeth.
Hi, I really enjoyed this episode. I'm in the community Harrison Urban Garden off Lake Ave at the South end of Colorado Springs. You give me hope. My soil is alkaline and I would say heavy. Just not anything like the soils I see used for growing sweet potatoes. As a lark I tried growing some in a large black landscape pot from mid season to sample eating the leaves. They were about 3 foot long vines last week. (Not enough watering by me, they were tough.) UA-cam Deep South Homestead has very good video of growing slips by putting the whole sweet potato covered about roughly one and a half to two inches below the fluffy kept-moist soil so the slips already have roots when you take them off the main sweet potato. I think by growing in say a deep dishpan on a heat mat you can save considerable time, and repotted into soil pots also on the heat mat, you can get your starter plants considerably bigger for setting out.
I grew some for the first time this year , just non organic from the store . I was encouraged. I will try more in the spring.i did regular potatoes too. They did great.
My regular supermarket sweet potato wouldn't grow slips last year, but the organic one I bought did. I used the water toothpick method and started them side by side. The non-organic one just rotted. Also, sweet potatoes grow down. You may find more closer to the bottom. I grew mine in a 10 gallon grow bag and most of the potatoes were at the very bottom of the bag. Also, sweet potatoes are heavy feeders.
I suspect they spray the non-organic ones with a sprout inhibitor like they do with potatoes so they don't sprout in the supermarket. The organic ones are not sprayed with the sprout inhibitor.
From South Mississippi, sweet potato country- they grow here even when the soil is hard, get big even from grocery store potatoes, grow in poor soil and everywhere... I really think it’s the heat and humidity they need. I wonder if you used some type of clear plastic cover during most of the main season, if below 80•....It would certainly be hot enough!
Hi! I'm loving your content for a variety of reasons, so, Thanks for that! I'm a relatively new transplant to the South - from the NYC suburbs (6b) to the Southeastern coastal area of Florida (10a). Here? We grow Sweet Potatoes by the wheel barrel full. One other consideration you should make - besides your soil, which is a definite possibility! - is WATER. Sweet potatoes are water hogs. But, they don't like it to sit. So? Yeah, you guessed it! No WET FEET. Freely draining, sandy soil, with LOTS of organic matter, and LOTS of water! Down here, we get 4-6" of rain on an almost daily basis. Especially lately! My sweet potatoes are bigger than softballs and as sweet as candy (after curing a bit.) They show their discomfort in drought conditions with obvious wilting, and the more they deal with the drought? The smaller the tubers you get. I get my best sweet 'taters in the sandiest soil that is constantly moistened because it's about 10 feet from the drainspout. Just something else to think about! Hope it helps!
Sweet potatoes are like a perfect food. The tubers are delicious and prolific and the leaves are also delicious and prolific. I have seen people growing them under plastic, probably to maintain heat and moisture. You can get slips just putting the original sweet potato in a bit of soil. As the slips grow up, pop them out with some roots and relocate them. I just microwave my sweet potatoes plain or put them right on the grill plain or wrap them in foil or parchment and grill or roast them plain. They are delicious! My mother's method was to cut them and cook them with the rice. That was yummy!
A while ago, for an experiment, I grew some slips from a supermarket sweet potato that the wife thought was past edible. It grew a remarkable number of shoots, but of course I was way too late in the season to plant. Next season, at least I have some idea of how and when to proceed! Thanks for your video!
You've made me feel better about my first attempt with sweet potatoes, also in a brand new bed. It was underwhelming to say the least. I'm hoping next year will be a little better, my knowledge has definitely increased and that's never a bad thing!
I'm in New England and grew a few organic sweet potatoes slips from store bought potato this season and had similar results. I used a grow bag. They were all small purplish/reddish but very yummy! I'll try your idea to warm up the soil. As always, thank you for great information!
You definitely enjoyed that sweet potato!!! I grew some in huge flower pots and large tubs. Trellised them up cattle panels. I got a harvest similar to yours! Will be using them for holiday meals as pie, candied or souffle! I'm going to try something different and keep the vine to grow more slips! They're rooting already! I will see what happens! Thanks Gardener Scott, hope to see ya Monday! Blessings
Add a bale of peat. Moss to that soil and that should help those sweet potatoes. Also, out there you should water twice a day and it's time consuming. You might want to put a 55 gallon plastic water drum up on the side and use a drip line. That would increase your yeild! I grew them in Stratton Colo. Back in the 70's. Good luck.
I grew sweet potatoes for the first time this year also. I had a late start and we had a cool spring/early summer. When we went to harvest them they were small and not a lot. This next year I will grow them again, starting earlier and feed the plants more often with fertilizer. I think I will try to grow them under a hoop house over one raised bed to get and keep the soil warm. I was able to harvest some and look forward to eating them this winter.
I did not know about the slips in sweet potatoes. Learned a lot. We have a loong hot season here in the Middle East so things should go well. I'll try next year. Thanks a lot!
My mother grew sweet potatoes in her garden behind her house and they were as big as the ones in the store. I grew some 2 years ago and they were small like yours.
We leave ours in the ground a little over 90 days I put 25 ohenry slips in a 14” deep bed that is 20’ long x 2’ wide sprinkle in 2 lbs of pot ash and work it in and use sub surface irrigation my bed is primarily wood chip compost with some of our clay soil mixed in we harvested a little over a 100 lbs of potatoes, some of them were over 8 lbs each. The next time I go to the root cellar I will take some pictures for you we primarily make fries with the ohenrys they are better than Mickey Ds fries.
I ordered slips for the first time this year, but only because I want specific varieties. I've been growing sweet potatoes for years now off of a single sweet potato bought long ago. And I ate half that sweet potato when I got it before I grew slips from it. My soil has plenty of clay and is fairly heavy. The sweet potatoes don't mind. Based on my experience (not an expert), I would suggest two changes to get a better yield: First, train the vines to climb that trellis. The vines don't naturally climb, but they will catch a lot more sun if you do train them up the trellis so it seems silly not to use it. I normally train mine up a trellis because I'm trying to grow them without taking a lot of extra space. My second suggestion is to put some clear plastic down to warm the soil during the early part of the season. They'll get established faster and make better use of the growing time you have. (Edit: posted this before seeing you mention that last part in the cooking section). I'm in the Arkansas Ozarks, by the way. Just barely in zone 7a, though I do get plenty of heat in the summer months and sweet potatoes grow like weeds. Mine typically get about 120 days from planting to harvest.
Mine are finger width, too. I think if I used a low tunnel, something to keep in heat at night, perlite and manure and mulch added to the soil sand maybe a black plastic mulch on top to trap heat. My harvest was like yours. On the other hand, I can use some of the sweet potatoes to start new slips! Also-I can grow some for the leaves indoors, extra crop!
I started with three different organic sweet potatoes. Grew slips that produced flesh of white, creamy yellow orange, and deep orange. The latter had the best flavor.
Looks like you harvested larger roots at the turn in your raised beds. That would indicate underwatering/drying towards the ends; whereas, the corner, with more capacity to hold water, produced larger roots. However, and as you mentioned, the new soil may have repelled water (hydrophobic), assuming all watering was measured equally throughout.
I am not a fan of sweet potatoes, but after watching this, I have to try it. I live in Northern California ( zone 7b) . Slightly off topic, I have watched MANY of your videos and learned so much. Thanks for sharing your gardening knowledge and experience. I live in a community with LOTS of deer --- very changeling --- example... no fence greater that 5 ft. Deer say: " that's not a fence ". Thanks again. Dave. .
I actually prefer the small ones. There's something about roasting them and then eating the potatoes whole. In fact at CA farmer's markets people sell small Japanese sweet potatoes.
Hi Scott, thanks for the encouraging video. Zone 6A Rhode Island here. A few thoughts: The last two years I bought slips, which luckily were available at my local Home Depot - $6.00 for 6, or $1 each. Your pricing comment might have referred to online purchasing, which probably is more in the $2 per plant range. I am pretty sure my Bonnie Plants slips were the Beauregard variety. I think it might be one of the most productive - it is one of the most common varieties also, as far as I can tell. It is one of the stereotypical light brown skin, orange flesh varieties. I planted them in one of my beds that gets the absolute most sun (along with three eggplants which did great also.) I had my best harvest I have had in four years as a result. My first couple of years, I grew slips also, the first year with good results, and last year no results at all. I think I will try again next year to grow my own slips. We had a particularly hot and dry summer here in RI, so I think that helped also. I think the hotter and dryer the weather, and also as long as possible of a growing season are the key factors, along with the Beauregard variety, which I have had the most luck for producing the largest sweet potatoes.
Wow, great video! Once you grow them your hooked and their delicious as you know. I'm in N.Y and this was my 3rd year growing them. I purchased two organic ones and started the slips in the soil as the water method takes forever. They do like loose soil and I plant them in the deep mulch around June 15th and dig them up at the end of October. I also have gotten a different variety from my orange ones. Have no idea what my first two even was. But every year I save some to make slips for the next season. This year was a hard one because of the drought and can't wait for next year already. Good luck to you I'll be watching!
I can get slips from the ends of sweet potatoes. I cut off about an inch of each end. Eat the rest. In a small pot with soil, I'll make a little crater and firmly place the ends.
I did the exact thing this spring, but had spectacular results. I planted 7 slips into a mound of half finished compost. It was a brand new mini bed, starter right on the lawn. I used some cardboard, to smother out the grass. Zone 6a, here with a hot and dry summer. Almost no pest pressure. I noticed that plants like an afternoon watering, mimicking the tropics. I got like 25 lbs and harvested like the end of September. I harvested that early because the tubers had started to poke through the now finished compost.
Some of mine were huge. The smallest ones were about the size of your largest you harvested. Try planting in a mound of compost next year. The tubers will form above the existing soil
I am from Maine where it is colder and shorter season than you and they are raising sweet potatoes up here. I'm excited!!! I'm going to try my hand at growing some this next season. When you get a chance check out Fedco. They sell sweet potato slips and the one I picked was Georgia Jet with a 90 days to mature. You'll need the black plastic to warm your soil and Fedco recommends the slited plastic to go over them. I am going to try to also grow some of them in 20 gal. pots. A video you might want to watch is Hollis and Nancy's Homestead. Hollis shows you how to grow them in pots; super nice couple and both of them are top notch gardeners; and can Nancy cook! I'll let you know how I make out next fall.
I grew Georgia Jet, and Centennial in zone 5a (Central Iowa). I was able to grow some large potatoes in raised beds. The soil was very loose, I was able to fish around with my hands and no tools and move my hand around like it was loose potting soil. I also had a lot of rodent tunnels in my bed which probably contributed to loosening, but the rodents gnawed on my tubers which wasn't ideal.
I had very mixed results with store bought sweet potatoes. All four of my Okinawan sweet potatoes rotted instead of sprouting, probably because they're grown in Hawaii and had to be sprayed with inhibitors to make the trip to the mainland. Two of the four red sweet potatoes also rotted, despite being bought organic, but the two that sprouted kept producing more slips than I knew what to do with. I experimented with planting them in partial shade, full shade, and full sun, and as expected, the ones planted in full sun did the best. I'm in zone 7b but we still have not had our first frost yet, and the forecast for November is actually quite warm, so I'm going to leave the sweet potatoes in the ground as long as they will grow.
Maybe you could set up a temporary cold frame to get them a good start next year. I was thinking it would be too cold here to grow sweet potatoes but maybe I'll try.
This video is encouraging! You got a great harvest of sweet potatoes. I think I will try growing them in a small square sized bed I have. I failed at trying to grow slips before but I will try again. I love muraski sweet potatoes from Trader Joe’s so I am going to try that variety.
Hello from Manitoba, Canada. :-) I've been growing sweet potatoes for more than a decade now. Your spring breaking times aren't that different from ours. I'm in Zone 2b. I also only grow from store bought organic tubers. My trick is to start them rooting at the end of January, first week of February, then I put them in fairly large pots, or even better a plastic shoebox like container. BPA free, of course. There they grow until the soil is warm enough. When I had greenhouse toppers on my sweet potatoe bed I was able to get them in the ground a month earlier. That made a bigger difference than extending in the fall. :-) More and stronger sunlight hours. I hope this helps.
@@GardenerScott I hope it works as well for you as it does for me. :-) I've pretty much been growing new slips off my own tubers for years now. I also normally plant them in front of my tomatoes in a raised bed. The vines work great to hold moisture in the bed, ;-) just don't let them root in along the vines or you will end up with smaller tubers at the base plant. :-) Happy gardening.
I planted my first sweet potato bed in a new raised bed this summer...had the same problem with size for the same soil reasons. I didn't have the proper curing conditions either and mine didn't get very sweet. Mine were paler inside and darker on the outside. Will definitely try again next summer.
I imagine it would take a long time to eat 65 lbs of sweet potatoes. How did you store them to preserve the harvest? Can you just put them in a cool garage in a dark corner like russet potatoes?
@@alicias9928 I put a layer of shredded paper in the bottom of milk crates and then layered in my potatoes with the paper in between as so they weren't touching each other 🙏 Kendra
Interesting take on the spray inhibitors. A friend gave me 4 potatoes to make slips from. I have struggled to get slips to form. Ine potato grew slips ( after 2 months the slips are only 3 inches long, 5 slips total). I never had these problems before. I’m sure these weren’t organic. I was lost, Tfs.
second comment.. YT edit isn't working right. Those little ones.. shred through a food processor,, sweet potato hash browns.. spicy or sweet.. I leave the skins on. yum
Thanks. I purchased slips but lost them in the flood from hurricane Ian. I still have slips but not sure what to do with them. Maybe I'll just plant and see what happens. Gardening is always full of secrets. You just never know what you'll get.
Mine survived the hurricaine surprisingly! The vines are so long & healthy. They look better then when I planted them last yr theough the summer. I think I planted them around end of Aug. Beginning of Sept. Should be interesting. have them in one of the raised beds.
Congrats on your sweet potato harvest in Colorado! Pretty amazing that you were able to grow them there. I learned from your video that we can just leave our sweet potatoes longer to cure when we don't have the ideal humid and temperature conditions. Thank you!
Howdy Gardener Scott! You grew some pretty sweet potatoes! 👍 How does your fur baby like them? 🐕Pups seem to go crazy for sweet potatoes.😀 Don't forget to loosen that soil a bit next year. I also add potash...they seem to like it. I always grow mine from a potato from the supermarket...one variety I have grown for 3 years now.
I have one organic sweet waiting to become slips.. in the fridge. I'm going with the end of November to pull it out and get it started. I'm thinking about cutting it in half and starting some a month later. It's still busting into the 80s daily here in middle of nowhere, Georgia... not for all day now though. I love this time of year. I'm ready for daylight savings time to go away too. I'm going to have to go in containers.. I've discovered on this newish property that the dirt here (not soil) eats organic matter. Licks the plate clean even. I have a bed I've been prepping since June for elephant garlic, 4x12ish. I dumped two big bags of peat moss on it, stirred it up and have been piling grass clippings on it since. I went out last week to grab some for a soil test..add in fall leaves and you would never know there had been any peat moss at all.. grey sandy clay.. dries to hard as rock but when you do get that stone broken, it's sand. I hadn't even tilled it in, just stirred it a little with a rake and watered it in. All that's left is grass clippings and dirt... bonus.. about 6" down, hard pack.
I assume you're past needing this information at this point, but... Sweet potatoes keep extremely well at room temperature. No need to refrigerate, and as they're tropical plants they probably keep less well in a refrigerator. Mine go about six months from harvest to getting new slips started. In that time they sprout naturally and I just tear off the slips and stick them in water as I eat the potatoes.
@@bobbun9630 I wish I could leave them out.. it's a fruit fly nightmare leaving anything out around here, all year long. I ended up eating that one. I've gone mostly keto now so I'm not growing what I'm avoiding eating.
This video came at the perfect time! I bought an organic Hanna Yam at the healthfood store a couple of weeks ago and it's sending up slips sitting on my counter. I was wondering how I might propagate that beauty now that my extra-high raised bed kits have arrived and will be getting filled soon. I'm a patient person and don't mind coddling some baby plants as they grow their roots through the winter. I'm in Zone 7A so the soil warms pretty early here.
I grew a grocery store sweet potato plant one year. The leaves were so pretty. I had it in a planter. However, I found out deer's love sweet potato leaves. They ate it all up one night.
I'm also in Colorado and heard that sweet potatoes need both warm days and nights and our nights can cool down quite a bit, even in the summer. I might test plant some into grow bags and see if those work out better. But overall I don't have enough raised beds to dedicate just for sweet potatoes.
![Turn ONE Sweet Potato Into 100 LBS Of Sweet Potatoes By Growing SWEET POTATO SLIPS! [Complete Guide]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0igp5IzO21g/mqdefault.jpg)
![Turn ONE Sweet Potato Into 100 LBS Of Sweet Potatoes By Growing SWEET POTATO SLIPS! [Complete Guide]](/img/tr.png)
That was a great sweet potato video! Thank You!
Hi. If you build little micro-climates using rock sculptures in your beds, they will emit heat down into the soil. This helps keep the soil warm during cooler night time temperatures. I use this technique here in my outdoor and greenhouse gardens here in East TN. On cool nights in the greenhouse, there is no need for hoops either, I just throw my landscape frost fabric right over the sculptures and they keep the cloth off the plants. I also used it in South Central Wyoming, when I lived there, to grow cool weather crops outdoors. It works great! ;)
Yup. I got an overflowing 5 gallon bucket from my supermarket root. Nine slips in three 15 gallon grow bags, with spare slips to give my neighbor.
My favorite method!
I planted 1 slip per 14 watering pots as an experiment. I did not expect anything because all the videos had people using much larger containers. I myself grew a full storage tote last year with great success. In fact my raised bed ones didn't do anywhere near as well last year. So this year and last we had an especially dry and hot summer here in Nebraska. My little 10 inch watering pots seemed impossible to keep watered enough and most of the plants weren't that impressive. One died. I ended up with an entire roasting pan full of potatoes! Digging for sweet potato treasure remains my favorite garden task.
I'm in Omaha, and I use large plastic tubs with great success. They do love the heat and humidity of our summers!
They’ll love this humidity in south ms
I’m in a sweet potato zone, and was gifted some purple variety slips a couple of years ago. I’ve been growing only with that stock since then. I was wringing my hands because when I planted my slips in 5 gallon containers, they were pretty scrawny. But WOW, I just harvested some and I got some beautiful big tubers! Thanks in no small part to the wonderful education and inspiration you are giving us, Gardener Scott! I’d never heard of buying slips until recently. I thought everybody got them at the grocery store. I had no idea slips were that expensive to purchase. I’m going to cure them this year for a good long time. Last year I left them outside for 6 weeks or so, overwhelmed with things to do, and they were still deliciously sweet!!
Were the big tubers from a 5 gallon bucket, or the ground? I tried growing a slip in a 10 gallon tub and mine were scrawny as well. I live in FL so the right temperature is not an issue.
Here in Ky I just transplant the volunteer slips from last yrs yams they seem to get hardier or acclimated to the area and they even will grow wild here
Looks like it tastes amazing. Keep on being you sir. Love your videos
I found out this summer sweet potato leaves are a favorite for salads and greens because they are super mild and will grow well in the heat without getting bitter.
I read somewhere that they are used in Vietnamese dishes too. Great to know you can harvest and eat some of the leaves if you want or need to.
@@CardiacCat especially if the frost is going to take them anyway. The leaves and stems, before they get tough, are great in stir fry too.
My rabbits love them!
I'm from the Philippines living in Canada for 38 years. My whole family are very happy harvesting sweet potato leaves. Since we have a short summer, able to harvest leaves is a treat...
One major thing I learned growing sweet potatoes last year is they need direct sunlight all day, no shade. So the amount of sunlight affects the size of the potato. Perhaps if youre able to use slips from your homegrown potatoes they’ll get acclimated to a shorter growing season.
Sweet potatoes can be used to help break up soil. They can grow in some pretty poor soils.
Don’t forget to eat the leaves and tender ends of the vines. Often stir fried.
I am near TN in Kentucky and grew sweet potatoes last year for first time. We had a hot summer with little rain. From one sweet potato that I got slips from grew a lot of big sweet potatoes. Five months later I was impressed. They are so much fun to dig up 😅
Even when they're small, they're super tasty! Last year I planted my homegrown slips in 3 areas: in a raised bed, in a giant ceramic pot, and in grow bags. All three looked healthy and strong, but the ones in the bed were scavenged by voles. The grow bags had the best results producing small but succulent beauties that lasted throughout the winter.
The secret to growing large sweet potatoes is lose soil and consistent moisture. I grow mine in hills, covered, with black plastic, and a soaker hose. One year I grew 8 pound sweet potatoes. If I had harvested them earlier they of course would have been smaller. They were not only beautiful but very tasty. Sweet potatoes do not require a lot of fertilizer. I hope this helps.
I grew a bunch this year but because my soil was too rich and high and nitrogen they didn't put on hardly any roots. My best part was near the path with more wood chips, firmer soil, and less nitrogen. The other bed I did was in some of my poorer soil and the slips were started later and they did better. This has been my experience, they love relatively poor fertility and they do well even in very hard soil. Maybe that will help. I'm also in Tennessee so we have the weather for growing them.
This is my kind of video. Never thought to grow a sweet potato before, and never knew I could root stems from one either. Looking forward to trying this out in a few months. Hi from Northern Ireland 👋
It's worth experimenting with them, but they really like hot weather and warm nights. Give them the warmest microclimate you've got, if you want to get good results.
I've already got jars of slips all over in the house for next year. And I also have some planted in big pots indoors, as well as the original sweet potatoes the slips r from growing in pots. I got the originals from a local colorado farmer who shares many of his crops at the local church food bank. I love sweet potatoes! Ur awesome gardener Scott! ☺
I watched a video from another gardener here on UA-cam earlier this summer about growing sweet potatoes (The Millennial Gardner is his channel) and he had a great tutorial on how to grow your own slips. I decided after watching that to try it myself in the spring when the frost is over. I'm in NC and they grow a lot of sweet potatoes here (and I love sweet potatoes). Glad to have your video added to compare more notes from various gardeners.
Thank You. When you said "piping hot" brought a smile to my face and a load of memories. My grandmother used to say the same thing when something came out of the oven until now, I had not heard anyone else use that phrase.
Because I usually buy organic sweet potatoes at the grocery store, and they often sprout, I start a lot of sweet potato slips each year. I hardly ever grow a sweet potato that's larger than a large egg. It's typically very dry here in early summer, and although daytime temperatures can be hot, at night it gets chilly. Like yours, the sweet potatoes I grow taste good, and I get a lot of them. My dogs love them, too, and they think it's a great treat to have some roasted sweet potato chunks mixed with their food.
All of my pets love baked sweet taters..dogs, box turtles and bunnies. Trying to cut down on my food bill by growing these.
I cut a sweet potato in half and put both halves in water until I saw good roots. I was just growing it for decoration in my flower pot. It grew very long finger potatoes. I ate them just like any other sweet potato. 👍
Sweet potatoes love acid. I had them growing in almost pure peet moss mended with 2 week old chicken manure and they did well. They also love sun. When I brought my slips out I thought I would have to harden them off to my harsh Florida sun, but they loved it and really took off.
You can eat the leaves of sweet potatoes as well. I've had them in salads and as a replacement to lettuce on roast beef sandwiches. The small sweet potatoes I like to eat raw, they taste and have a similar texture to a raw carrot.
The only major issue I've run into is that rabbits will eat the vines and leaves.
Minus the small size, that looks like a decent crop of sweet potatoes. I'm in Alberta, and we have a similar weather to Colorado. Certain things do need the right climate to grow. I've tried growing other things I've bought in a grocery store, and sometimes they were a success. Other times, it's not possible, due to growth inhibitors, like you mentioned. Cheers, Scott! ✌️
Especially considering that all of those he harvested came from only one sweet potato.
Its great that they came out small. Perfect for slicing and roasting!
Excellent video! It’s great to experiment with different crops and ideas in the garden!
Another possibility for the smaller tubers could be this variety was chosen for high yield commercial production. But without the typical long hot sweet potato climate, the tubers didn’t get the chance to bulk up like they would with ideal conditions. So you got the tuber formation, but maybe not enough time to size up.
Buy from the grocery store. Put standing vertical in a mason jar half covered with water. Stand on the edge of a window. When the slips grow out about six inches or so cut the potato long wise in two to four pieces with slips, potato and some of the roots on each piece (I use scissors to cut through the roots) Plant in the garden. Have grown a ton of sweet potatoes doing this. They take of really fast because the nice set of roots already developed.
You did great. Finger size can be eaten, too. Loose soil seems to help both formation and harvesting. I began my journey with sweet potatoes only this year in zone 8a. Amazingly, I got two harvests off the same vines plus I ate the greens throughout the summer as well. I realize that the tubers can even grow more tubers underneath them. So with a big enough containers, (I had 15 gallon) there was enough room. A frost came and I covered them in plastic. An inspection of damage seeing the leaves, I thought some died, but digging underneath the mulch, I saw they are still quite alive. For the pot, I did hügelkultur with branches, sticks and leaves at the bottom to keep everything moist, and on top, really loose soil with a little sand. Out of five store bought organic potatoes, I got hundreds of slips, many I give away. Out of the five 15 gallon containers and 17 plants (3 -4 per pot) I got four harvests for a side dish of sautéed greens and 40 pounds of sweet potatoes. The first harvest in August was about 30 pounds of mostly average and large sweet potatoes. The second harvest (I left the vines) in November was about 20 pounds of mostly very small tubers. I did not fertilize with anything but kitchen scrap compost tea. It's my first year and I didn't know what I was doing, but I will definitely appreciate these under-rated plants because even I got a harvest, with no experience and good weather.
Thank you! You’re a good teacher giving visual examples really help. I really enjoy your videos too. I’m a Master gardener too from zone 6a . Thanks again.
I accidentally planted sweet potatoes in my garden bed back in April. (I live in Las Vegas) This is my first attempt at gardening on my own. I had a sweet potato from the store that I didn't eat and it was going bad so I chopped it up and threw it in my raised bed that I was prepping but hadn't actually planted anything. I figured it could break down like a natural compost. When the seeds of my actual intended plants started sprouting, I was surprised to see a vine plant that I had not planted. I ended up moving them to their own bed. I haven't harvested yet but I have 3 large plants that I have loved watching grow. We will see what the results are in a little more time!!
Thank you for your videos Gardener Scott! I've been learning a ton from you!
How did it end up going?
Growing slips from store bought organic sweet potatoes does indeed work, but the problem is you don't know what variety your growing. In your zone, it's to your advantage to one-time purchase specific slips that require a shorter growing season. Then each year you can use your own short season variety to grow the upcoming season's slips. Another trick I use in my zone 5, is to warm the soil with black plastic a couple of weeks before planting.
I agree, Marilyn. I prefer to choose varieties that are more likely to do well for my region. Thanks.
We grow A LOT of sweet potatoes. The hardest part is to keep them away from the chickens, ducks, rabbits and deers.
We eat the leaves and stems and don't care too much about the tubers. Most of the time we don't even dig them up. They are great for loosening our heavy Houston Black Clay.
Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas but look at Asian cuisine for a rich portfolio of sweet potato recipes. Cook the stems with strips of lamb and peppers and and the leaves with a bit of garlic and you got yourself a gourmet meal that you will not find in any five star restaurant.
Do it again next year Scott. I’ve grown sweet potatoes for years always buying the slips. This year I started my own same as you, it was easy and so much great nutritious food for the effort. Nice video!
Enjoy your sweet potatoes!
Sweet potatoes are also a wonderful treat for dogs. Feed them sparingly, because they are pretty high in simple carbs. They should be cooked... raw they can eventually wear down the dog's teeth.
Hi, I really enjoyed this episode. I'm in the community Harrison Urban Garden off Lake Ave at the South end of Colorado Springs. You give me hope. My soil is alkaline and I would say heavy. Just not anything like the soils I see used for growing sweet potatoes. As a lark I tried growing some in a large black landscape pot from mid season to sample eating the leaves. They were about 3 foot long vines last week. (Not enough watering by me, they were tough.) UA-cam Deep South Homestead has very good video of growing slips by putting the whole sweet potato covered about roughly one and a half to two inches below the fluffy kept-moist soil so the slips already have roots when you take them off the main sweet potato. I think by growing in say a deep dishpan on a heat mat you can save considerable time, and repotted into soil pots also on the heat mat, you can get your starter plants considerably bigger for setting out.
I grew some for the first time this year , just non organic from the store . I was encouraged. I will try more in the spring.i did regular potatoes too. They did great.
The sweet potatoes looked yummy even before you roasted them. 😋
Next year will be better ... great try. I bet the roast would be great with rosemary!
My regular supermarket sweet potato wouldn't grow slips last year, but the organic one I bought did. I used the water toothpick method and started them side by side. The non-organic one just rotted. Also, sweet potatoes grow down. You may find more closer to the bottom. I grew mine in a 10 gallon grow bag and most of the potatoes were at the very bottom of the bag. Also, sweet potatoes are heavy feeders.
That's what I did. Just did the ol toothpick and mason jar method with an organic potato as the mother plant.
I suspect they spray the non-organic ones with a sprout inhibitor like they do with potatoes so they don't sprout in the supermarket. The organic ones are not sprayed with the sprout inhibitor.
From South Mississippi, sweet potato country- they grow here even when the soil is hard, get big even from grocery store potatoes, grow in poor soil and everywhere... I really think it’s the heat and humidity they need. I wonder if you used some type of clear plastic cover during most of the main season, if below 80•....It would certainly be hot enough!
Hi! I'm loving your content for a variety of reasons, so, Thanks for that!
I'm a relatively new transplant to the South - from the NYC suburbs (6b) to the Southeastern coastal area of Florida (10a). Here? We grow Sweet Potatoes by the wheel barrel full. One other consideration you should make - besides your soil, which is a definite possibility! - is WATER. Sweet potatoes are water hogs. But, they don't like it to sit. So? Yeah, you guessed it! No WET FEET. Freely draining, sandy soil, with LOTS of organic matter, and LOTS of water! Down here, we get 4-6" of rain on an almost daily basis. Especially lately! My sweet potatoes are bigger than softballs and as sweet as candy (after curing a bit.) They show their discomfort in drought conditions with obvious wilting, and the more they deal with the drought? The smaller the tubers you get.
I get my best sweet 'taters in the sandiest soil that is constantly moistened because it's about 10 feet from the drainspout.
Just something else to think about! Hope it helps!
Sweet potatoes are like a perfect food. The tubers are delicious and prolific and the leaves are also delicious and prolific. I have seen people growing them under plastic, probably to maintain heat and moisture. You can get slips just putting the original sweet potato in a bit of soil. As the slips grow up, pop them out with some roots and relocate them.
I just microwave my sweet potatoes plain or put them right on the grill plain or wrap them in foil or parchment and grill or roast them plain. They are delicious! My mother's method was to cut them and cook them with the rice. That was yummy!
A while ago, for an experiment, I grew some slips from a supermarket sweet potato that the wife thought was past edible. It grew a remarkable number of shoots, but of course I was way too late in the season to plant. Next season, at least I have some idea of how and when to proceed! Thanks for your video!
You've made me feel better about my first attempt with sweet potatoes, also in a brand new bed. It was underwhelming to say the least. I'm hoping next year will be a little better, my knowledge has definitely increased and that's never a bad thing!
Same here! I did enjoy the green leaves though.
They turned out georgous
I'm in New England and grew a few organic sweet potatoes slips from store bought potato this season and had similar results. I used a grow bag. They were all small purplish/reddish but very yummy! I'll try your idea to warm up the soil. As always, thank you for great information!
You definitely enjoyed that sweet potato!!! I grew some in huge flower pots and large tubs. Trellised them up cattle panels. I got a harvest similar to yours! Will be using them for holiday meals as pie, candied or souffle! I'm going to try something different and keep the vine to grow more slips! They're rooting already! I will see what happens! Thanks Gardener Scott, hope to see ya Monday! Blessings
Hope to see you too. We missed you last week.
Add a bale of peat. Moss to that soil and that should help those sweet potatoes. Also, out there you should water twice a day and it's time consuming. You might want to put a 55 gallon plastic water drum up on the side and use a drip line. That would increase your yeild! I grew them in Stratton Colo. Back in the 70's. Good luck.
I grew sweet potatoes for the first time this year also. I had a late start and we had a cool spring/early summer. When we went to harvest them they were small and not a lot. This next year I will grow them again, starting earlier and feed the plants more often with fertilizer. I think I will try to grow them under a hoop house over one raised bed to get and keep the soil warm. I was able to harvest some and look forward to eating them this winter.
Wondering.... sweet potatoes , all potatoes need room to spread & grow ?? Yes ?? Great Gardener Scott , once more , I learned ALOT !! Thanks ! 🍀🌸
Sometimes the small Potatoes are the best tasting!
To cure my harvests I use a space heater with a pot of water in the powder room, covered with towel 😁
I did not know about the slips in sweet potatoes. Learned a lot. We have a loong hot season here in the Middle East so things should go well. I'll try next year. Thanks a lot!
My mother grew sweet potatoes in her garden behind her house and they were as big as the ones in the store. I grew some 2 years ago and they were small like yours.
We leave ours in the ground a little over 90 days I put 25 ohenry slips in a 14” deep bed that is 20’ long x 2’ wide sprinkle in 2 lbs of pot ash and work it in and use sub surface irrigation my bed is primarily wood chip compost with some of our clay soil mixed in we harvested a little over a 100 lbs of potatoes, some of them were over 8 lbs each. The next time I go to the root cellar I will take some pictures for you we primarily make fries with the ohenrys they are better than Mickey Ds fries.
I ordered slips for the first time this year, but only because I want specific varieties. I've been growing sweet potatoes for years now off of a single sweet potato bought long ago. And I ate half that sweet potato when I got it before I grew slips from it.
My soil has plenty of clay and is fairly heavy. The sweet potatoes don't mind. Based on my experience (not an expert), I would suggest two changes to get a better yield: First, train the vines to climb that trellis. The vines don't naturally climb, but they will catch a lot more sun if you do train them up the trellis so it seems silly not to use it. I normally train mine up a trellis because I'm trying to grow them without taking a lot of extra space. My second suggestion is to put some clear plastic down to warm the soil during the early part of the season. They'll get established faster and make better use of the growing time you have. (Edit: posted this before seeing you mention that last part in the cooking section).
I'm in the Arkansas Ozarks, by the way. Just barely in zone 7a, though I do get plenty of heat in the summer months and sweet potatoes grow like weeds. Mine typically get about 120 days from planting to harvest.
Good job Scott,. Loosen that soil a bit with straw and you should see a size increase 👌🏻🇺🇸
Mine are finger width, too. I think if I used a low tunnel, something to keep in heat at night, perlite and manure and mulch added to the soil sand maybe a black plastic mulch on top to trap heat. My harvest was like yours. On the other hand, I can use some of the sweet potatoes to start new slips! Also-I can grow some for the leaves indoors, extra crop!
They look so much better than the sweet potato you started with, looks delicious!! Thank you for the effort you put into all your videos!
We safe our fingerlings from the last crop and sprout them. It hasn't failed us yet.
I started with three different organic sweet potatoes. Grew slips that produced flesh of white, creamy yellow orange, and deep orange. The latter had the best flavor.
Looks like you harvested larger roots at the turn in your raised beds. That would indicate underwatering/drying towards the ends; whereas, the corner, with more capacity to hold water, produced larger roots. However, and as you mentioned, the new soil may have repelled water (hydrophobic), assuming all watering was measured equally throughout.
I am not a fan of sweet potatoes, but after watching this, I have to try it. I live in Northern California ( zone 7b) . Slightly off topic, I have watched MANY of your videos and learned so much. Thanks for sharing your gardening knowledge and experience. I live in a community with LOTS of deer --- very changeling --- example... no fence greater that 5 ft. Deer say: " that's not a fence ". Thanks again. Dave. .
I actually prefer the small ones. There's something about roasting them and then eating the potatoes whole. In fact at CA farmer's markets people sell small Japanese sweet potatoes.
great job first time growing sweet potatos good tip
Thanks Scott
Hi Scott, thanks for the encouraging video. Zone 6A Rhode Island here. A few thoughts: The last two years I bought slips, which luckily were available at my local Home Depot - $6.00 for 6, or $1 each. Your pricing comment might have referred to online purchasing, which probably is more in the $2 per plant range. I am pretty sure my Bonnie Plants slips were the Beauregard variety. I think it might be one of the most productive - it is one of the most common varieties also, as far as I can tell. It is one of the stereotypical light brown skin, orange flesh varieties. I planted them in one of my beds that gets the absolute most sun (along with three eggplants which did great also.) I had my best harvest I have had in four years as a result. My first couple of years, I grew slips also, the first year with good results, and last year no results at all. I think I will try again next year to grow my own slips. We had a particularly hot and dry summer here in RI, so I think that helped also. I think the hotter and dryer the weather, and also as long as possible of a growing season are the key factors, along with the Beauregard variety, which I have had the most luck for producing the largest sweet potatoes.
Thanks, Jeff. For my next effort to seriously grow a good crop I'll go with a known variety. Thanks for the Beauregard suggestion.
That's the Japanese variety - It looks yum.
Wow, great video! Once you grow them your hooked and their delicious as you know. I'm in N.Y and this was my 3rd year growing them. I purchased two organic ones and started the slips in the soil as the water method takes forever. They do like loose soil and I plant them in the deep mulch around June 15th and dig them up at the end of October. I also have gotten a different variety from my orange ones. Have no idea what my first two even was. But every year I save some to make slips for the next season. This year was a hard one because of the drought and can't wait for next year already. Good luck to you I'll be watching!
Thanks. I agree and now I'm hooked.
have grown some unusual sweet potato varieties (purple / white etc ) from Asian food store sweet potatoes.
I can get slips from the ends of sweet potatoes. I cut off about an inch of each end. Eat the rest. In a small pot with soil, I'll make a little crater and firmly place the ends.
We have relatively cool nights in Colorado Springs. Sweet potatoes want warmth at night too.
I did the exact thing this spring, but had spectacular results. I planted 7 slips into a mound of half finished compost. It was a brand new mini bed, starter right on the lawn. I used some cardboard, to smother out the grass. Zone 6a, here with a hot and dry summer. Almost no pest pressure. I noticed that plants like an afternoon watering, mimicking the tropics. I got like 25 lbs and harvested like the end of September. I harvested that early because the tubers had started to poke through the now finished compost.
Some of mine were huge. The smallest ones were about the size of your largest you harvested. Try planting in a mound of compost next year. The tubers will form above the existing soil
I am from Maine where it is colder and shorter season than you and they are raising sweet potatoes up here. I'm excited!!! I'm going to try my hand at growing some this next season. When you get a chance check out Fedco. They sell sweet potato slips and the one I picked was Georgia Jet with a 90 days to mature. You'll need the black plastic to warm your soil and Fedco recommends the slited plastic to go over them. I am going to try to also grow some of them in 20 gal. pots. A video you might want to watch is Hollis and Nancy's Homestead. Hollis shows you how to grow them in pots; super nice couple and both of them are top notch gardeners; and can Nancy cook! I'll let you know how I make out next fall.
I love Fedco. I've ordered, trees, shrubs and potatoes from them. I haven't done sweet potatoes from them, so thanks for the suggestion.
I grew Georgia Jet, and Centennial in zone 5a (Central Iowa). I was able to grow some large potatoes in raised beds. The soil was very loose, I was able to fish around with my hands and no tools and move my hand around like it was loose potting soil. I also had a lot of rodent tunnels in my bed which probably contributed to loosening, but the rodents gnawed on my tubers which wasn't ideal.
I had very mixed results with store bought sweet potatoes. All four of my Okinawan sweet potatoes rotted instead of sprouting, probably because they're grown in Hawaii and had to be sprayed with inhibitors to make the trip to the mainland. Two of the four red sweet potatoes also rotted, despite being bought organic, but the two that sprouted kept producing more slips than I knew what to do with. I experimented with planting them in partial shade, full shade, and full sun, and as expected, the ones planted in full sun did the best. I'm in zone 7b but we still have not had our first frost yet, and the forecast for November is actually quite warm, so I'm going to leave the sweet potatoes in the ground as long as they will grow.
Maybe you could set up a temporary cold frame to get them a good start next year. I was thinking it would be too cold here to grow sweet potatoes but maybe I'll try.
This video is encouraging! You got a great harvest of sweet potatoes. I think I will try growing them in a small square sized bed I have. I failed at trying to grow slips before but I will try again. I love muraski sweet potatoes from Trader Joe’s so I am going to try that variety.
Hello from Manitoba, Canada. :-) I've been growing sweet potatoes for more than a decade now. Your spring breaking times aren't that different from ours. I'm in Zone 2b. I also only grow from store bought organic tubers. My trick is to start them rooting at the end of January, first week of February, then I put them in fairly large pots, or even better a plastic shoebox like container. BPA free, of course. There they grow until the soil is warm enough. When I had greenhouse toppers on my sweet potatoe bed I was able to get them in the ground a month earlier. That made a bigger difference than extending in the fall. :-) More and stronger sunlight hours. I hope this helps.
Thanks, Orlanda. I knew I was starting late once everything got growing. I'll start earlier with covering, like you, for next year.
@@GardenerScott I hope it works as well for you as it does for me. :-) I've pretty much been growing new slips off my own tubers for years now. I also normally plant them in front of my tomatoes in a raised bed. The vines work great to hold moisture in the bed, ;-) just don't let them root in along the vines or you will end up with smaller tubers at the base plant. :-) Happy gardening.
I planted my first sweet potato bed in a new raised bed this summer...had the same problem with size for the same soil reasons. I didn't have the proper curing conditions either and mine didn't get very sweet. Mine were paler inside and darker on the outside. Will definitely try again next summer.
This is the only way I've ever grown sweet potatoes, once I had a 65+ pound harvest from 2 potatoes... Excellent video Gardener Scott 🙏 Kendra
I imagine it would take a long time to eat 65 lbs of sweet potatoes. How did you store them to preserve the harvest? Can you just put them in a cool garage in a dark corner like russet potatoes?
@@alicias9928 I put a layer of shredded paper in the bottom of milk crates and then layered in my potatoes with the paper in between as so they weren't touching each other 🙏 Kendra
Thank you for all the great tips. I learned a lot from you. I'm a big fan of yours from London, Ontario, Canada.
Interesting take on the spray inhibitors. A friend gave me 4 potatoes to make slips from. I have struggled to get slips to form. Ine potato grew slips ( after 2 months the slips are only 3 inches long, 5 slips total). I never had these problems before. I’m sure these weren’t organic. I was lost, Tfs.
second comment.. YT edit isn't working right.
Those little ones.. shred through a food processor,, sweet potato hash browns.. spicy or sweet.. I leave the skins on. yum
Those look beautiful!!!!!
Thanks. I purchased slips but lost them in the flood from hurricane Ian. I still have slips but not sure what to do with them. Maybe I'll just plant and see what happens. Gardening is always full of secrets. You just never know what you'll get.
Mine survived the hurricaine surprisingly! The vines are so long & healthy. They look better then when I planted them last yr theough the summer. I think I planted them around end of Aug. Beginning of Sept. Should be interesting. have them in one of the raised beds.
Congrats on your sweet potato harvest in Colorado! Pretty amazing that you were able to grow them there. I learned from your video that we can just leave our sweet potatoes longer to cure when we don't have the ideal humid and temperature conditions. Thank you!
I've been thinking about trying to grow them and that bite you took just convinced me I should try.
Thank you! That's inspiring.
Thanks!
Great video, TFS
Howdy Gardener Scott! You grew some pretty sweet potatoes! 👍
How does your fur baby like them? 🐕Pups seem to go crazy for sweet potatoes.😀
Don't forget to loosen that soil a bit next year. I also add potash...they seem to like it.
I always grow mine from a potato from the supermarket...one variety I have grown for 3 years now.
Mala occasionally nibbled on the leaves. I'll definitely share some of the cooked ones with her.
I have one organic sweet waiting to become slips.. in the fridge. I'm going with the end of November to pull it out and get it started. I'm thinking about cutting it in half and starting some a month later.
It's still busting into the 80s daily here in middle of nowhere, Georgia... not for all day now though. I love this time of year. I'm ready for daylight savings time to go away too.
I'm going to have to go in containers.. I've discovered on this newish property that the dirt here (not soil) eats organic matter. Licks the plate clean even.
I have a bed I've been prepping since June for elephant garlic, 4x12ish. I dumped two big bags of peat moss on it, stirred it up and have been piling grass clippings on it since. I went out last week to grab some for a soil test..add in fall leaves and you would never know there had been any peat moss at all.. grey sandy clay.. dries to hard as rock but when you do get that stone broken, it's sand. I hadn't even tilled it in, just stirred it a little with a rake and watered it in.
All that's left is grass clippings and dirt... bonus.. about 6" down, hard pack.
I assume you're past needing this information at this point, but... Sweet potatoes keep extremely well at room temperature. No need to refrigerate, and as they're tropical plants they probably keep less well in a refrigerator. Mine go about six months from harvest to getting new slips started. In that time they sprout naturally and I just tear off the slips and stick them in water as I eat the potatoes.
@@bobbun9630 I wish I could leave them out.. it's a fruit fly nightmare leaving anything out around here, all year long. I ended up eating that one. I've gone mostly keto now so I'm not growing what I'm avoiding eating.
This video came at the perfect time! I bought an organic Hanna Yam at the healthfood store a couple of weeks ago and it's sending up slips sitting on my counter. I was wondering how I might propagate that beauty now that my extra-high raised bed kits have arrived and will be getting filled soon. I'm a patient person and don't mind coddling some baby plants as they grow their roots through the winter. I'm in Zone 7A so the soil warms pretty early here.
I've done this with success
You can grow the plants from cuttings and overwinter for a quicker start. I'm trying it this year for next year's harvest
Hello. How are you over wintering the slips? I have some and hate to toss them.
@@sonnyamoran7383 hi I've got them in the greenhouse at the moment, but may bring them indoors if it gets too cold. So far autumn has been very mild.
@@alisonbates4901 thanks. I don't have a green house, yet, anyway. I'm in 9b central Florida so who knows maybe I'll get some sweet taters.
@@SunsetGazing will do. Thanks so much.
Well it's not going well. Last weeks big freeze means now I have 3 out of 12 left! Will have to look after these.
I’m definitely going to give it a go next year. Thanks for sharing your experiment. 😊
Great video! (And makes me wish I had a sweet potato in the house for dinner!) Can't wait to try it!
I am wanting to grow seeeet potatoes this year!
I don't feel so bad now...two seasons in a row I've had total failure with both sweet and regular potatoes. Zone 9 soil seems to be key.
I grew a grocery store sweet potato plant one year. The leaves were so pretty. I had it in a planter. However, I found out deer's love sweet potato leaves. They ate it all up one night.
Luckily I grew them in my enclosed garden. The deer did eat any stems or leaves that grew outside the fencing.
I'm also in Colorado and heard that sweet potatoes need both warm days and nights and our nights can cool down quite a bit, even in the summer. I might test plant some into grow bags and see if those work out better. But overall I don't have enough raised beds to dedicate just for sweet potatoes.