This the first year I have grown sweet potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of this particular vegetable but it's healthy, supposedly easy to grow, and stores well for winter eating. I have an entire 4'x10' bed planned for them.In order to get rooted sweet potato slips, they must be started early. I started mine a few weeks ago by securing them over a glass of water using toothpicks. Does anyone else remember these from their grandparents house? My granny had one that trailed all around her window. Depending on how many slips I get, I may keep one or two for a pretty house plant.
The "slip" of the sweet potato is the stem that comes up from the eyes. They will grow quite tall, then I will carefully pick them off and place them in water to root (much like a tomato clipping). Once rooted, they will be transplanted into the garden to grow all summer long and harvested in late fall.
I didn't bother ordering any fancy sweet potatoes. These fellas just came from the natural food store. Be sure to buy organic, that should ensure that they haven't been sprayed with anything that inhibits sprouting. These are the roots I've gotten over the last few weeks. They grew FAST!
Are you growing sweet potatoes this year?
Subscribe to my RSS Feed, connect on Google+, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter so you don't miss a thing!
Thanks for this post! We picked up some sweet potatoes today just to do this very thing.
ReplyDeleteI love this .. thank you for sharing. Can you do this with any potato?
ReplyDeleteNo catalogs sale sweet potatoes to California residents. I may buy some organic ones and try this. I haven't really researched why CA doesn't sale them in nurseries. Thanks for the share on #gardenchat
ReplyDelete