Sweet potatoes question

[lilcee]

This is my first year growing sweet potatoes. The leaves have spots on them. Is that normal or is there something wrong with them?

[Tate]

This is my first year to grow them. I have the slips already. Does each plant form one potato at each point it touches the ground? Or does it form more than one? For example, if I let the vine from one plant touch in 3 places to form 3 roots along the vine does that mean 3 potatoes? Does each plant form one vine or more than one? I read that the deeper the soil the more productive they will be. Today, I got more soil and increased my depth in one of my raised beds to 18 inches in preparation for planting. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Tate

[Ozark Lady]

Since no one has attempted this, I will.
Can you post photos of the spots?
I have little transplants growing and they have no spots, and I honestly don't recall having spots before. Maybe, I did and forgot? I know that I had spots after frost, but that was damage.

The Sweet Potatoes will make alot of tubers. The more vigorous the vine the larger they will get. But, you will get more tubers everyplace that it roots, that is why some are considering trellising them, so they have to put more energy into less quantity. They are vines, and instead of climbing fences and having holding tendrils, they run along the ground, rooting as they go, and they can be challenging to dig up, since they can actually go pretty deep.

I normally devote a bed, this year it will be a boat to them, and simply keep redirecting them, back into their growing area.

The leaves are also edible, although I haven't tried them.

[gixxerific]

I can't remember having any tubers at the points where the vine hits the ground. I did have quite a few big ones on at least one plant.

I have been trying unsuccessfully to sprout some of last years sweets with no success. I have tried the water but I probably didn't let them get warm enough. Right now I have some just stuck in the ground to see if that will work. I may pull one and do as some of you did and put them in a pot or something with a little soil. Hoping for the best. They were great last year much better than store bought.

[Gary350]

I don't have any trouble growing sweet potatoes. I look in the kitchen pantry for grocery store sweet potatoes that are sprouting. I cut the end off with all the sprouts. I put the sprout potato piece in the soil and cover it up and it grows. Last summer I planted 4 sweet potatoes at one side of my herb garden about the first week of July. The soil is not very good here, lots of lime stone gravel, sand, clay. I tilled in a lot of organic material several years ago but it all composted away you can't tell it ever had any compost. It is pretty hot, dry and well drained soil the herbs like it but most of the weeds won't grow here because it is too dry. The sweet potatoes did great. I kept turning the vines and made them all grow in a circle about 4 ft diameter. About late August or maybe early Sept I noticed the new sweet potatoes were growing up out of the soil so I had to cover them up with dirt. It frosted late October I pulled the vines when they started to look like they were dying. I got about 7 to 8 large potatoes from each plant.

[Ozark Lady]

Here is my sweet potato starts. They are in a plastic shoebox, with a couple inches of dirt and no drainage holes at all, I just water them a little bit based on how the dirt feels, and keep it a little dry, but not dry, dry.

I plan to snip off these vines, since they are tops and have no roots. But here is what they look like right now, before I clip them. I will put the snipped off pieces in water to root. If they work great, if not, well, the lower ones will have roots.

[img]https://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww281/Ozark_Lady/000_0236_phixr.jpg[/img]

[Gary350]

Here is my sweet potato starts. They are in a plastic shoebox, with a couple inches of dirt and no drainage holes at all, I just water them a little bit based on how the dirt feels, and keep it a little dry, but not dry, dry.

I plan to snip off these vines, since they are tops and have no roots. But here is what they look like right now, before I clip them. I will put the snipped off pieces in water to root. If they work great, if not, well, the lower ones will have roots.
]

I would not snip them and put them in water to grow roots that sounds like unnecessary work. I always cut off a small piece of the potatoe with the sprouts. I place that piece in the soil, cover it with soil and it grows fine. I don't cover them with very much soil either maybe an 1" of soil at the most. In about 2 months you will see the new potatoes pushing up through the soil, they will need to be covered with more soil.

[gixxerific]

alright than I am going out right now to try another method. You all got me wanting some fresh sweets now.

I second the hilling of the plants, not sure if that is what did it last year but the only plant I hilled up real high outproduced 8 other plants together.

[applestar]

The ones you have in the ground, try putting cloches on them (you still have your milk jugs right?). My salad tub in clear grocery bag loosely tied closed and the 24" window box now sitting on the black plastic and covered with clear plastic are both sprouting, though not vining like OL's. From what Gary said, I can just cut these up with piece of potato attached and plant them.

[Dixana]

Sometimes I hate this forum!!!! Now I want sweet potatoes too, I LOVE them and so does my little guy.
Repeating to myself- "you have no space for potatoes, you have no space for potatoes, YOU HAVE NO SPACE FOR POTATOES!"
BAH

[applestar]

What about that sunny patch of lawn...

[Dixana]

I'm gonna post a pic of what's left of my lawn after the garden is in so you know how little lawn there really is.
Keeping in mind of course we have a 2 year old and a 6 month old german shephard....

[Gary350]

I found 5 sweet potatoes with sprouts in the kitchen pantry today so I guess I have to plant sweet potatoes too. Problem is I have no space left in my garden. (??????????) Some how I need to find a place to plant these. I will cut the potato off and put them in the compost all I want to save is the very tip end of the potato with all the sprouts. One potato looks like it has 6 or 7 sprouts on the tip end all the others have 1 to 4 sprouts on the tip end. 5 plants should grow at least 30 nice size potatoes.

[lilcee]

Here are a couple pictures of my plants. They are called Beauregard Sweet Potato if that means anything

[img]https://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q200/lilcee1947/100_1067.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q200/lilcee1947/100_1066.jpg[/img][/img]

[Ozark Lady]

Those spots look like damage. For instance from frost. But you are in Florida, okay, how about water damage? Have you watered when the sun was shining bright?

They could even be a fungus or disease. I don't know. You know, I would go through and snip all affected leaves off, and wait to see if it comes back, and be really careful not to get water on the leaves.

I bet some of the ones more up on diseases than I, will spot this and post. But, for my 2 cents, I would just cut them off, leaf by leaf, not the whole stem.

[lilcee]

I know it's not frost - it's been in the 90's here. My husband was thinking water damage too. It is pretty hot. I started watering them around the bottom and try not to get any on the leaves. Thanks for your suggestion

[Gary350]

If you water in the evening about an hour before sun down you won't have to worry about water damage. Mother nature usually makes rain in the evening so it is natural for the plants to get wet then. I always give my plants a good drink of water by watering the soil first then I put the garden hose on spray and give the plants a good shower. The shower cleans the plants. I try not to get much water on the soil around the plants that will only make weeds grow. A little water is OK if weeds try to sprout the soil soon dries out and the weeds die. Once I get weeds under control usually when it gets 85+ degrees and sunny all day about mid June I have no weed problems the rest of the summer. If I mulch my garden that makes the soil hold moisture and all the weed seeds sprout and grow. Dry soil makes the plants grow deep roots in search of water a very hot dry summer does not bother the plants much at all.

[lilcee]

Thanks, I'll give that a try

[Cats&Dogs]

I am attempting my first try at sweet potatoes. I have had a half of a sweet potato "slipping" for quite a while now and it's not even an inch tall, with *no* roots? I'm thinking I just might plant it as is, with the small slip above ground into my raised bed.
Think this might work?
Anyone?

[applestar]

I'm just going to give you the [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=136355#136355]same advice I gave Gixx in this post on Page 2 of this thread[/url].

I decided to try planting some of the not-yet-vining "slips" in sunniest of the sweet potato designated beds today. I used a sharp knife to cut off a piece of the mother potato with a cluster of sprouts -- they were near one end as Gary350 suggested. When I carefully dug that piece out of the sandy soil in the window box, I discovered they had great set of roots. I cut/dug up a few more and planted them with their little chunk of mother potato attached. I had one that I accidentally cut off of the potato but it had nice set of roots so I think it has a good start. 90/63ºF and 89/64ºF next couple of days, then dipping back down to 74/53ºF and then 71/55ºF We're not quite there yet.

[Arriga]

Still not sure. Should I pile dirt along the sides, bury the vines or pile dirt in spots?

[Bobberman]

I think this is a really ood subject since more and more people like sweet potatoes for their flower boxes. We have had one sweetpotato in a half wine barrel with a tall spike and its is really nice the seet potato climbs down fron the barrel toward the ground! Fro what I read here 80 to 90 is idea to stat the plants. I think that is m problem! I will take 2 sweet potatoes and put some dirt and water in a keddle and place3 it beside the hot water tank that is nea a window in the basement and I think the extra heat will work! Even the top of a hot
water tank is only warm depends on the tank! But I think it will work! Thanks Apple. You are not related to Jonny Apple seed are you!!!

[Bobberman]

Out of 10 sweet potatoes put in water none did a thing and it has been a month!! I think its the city water. I put 6 in dirt this week in the green house!