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kayjay
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Location: Southern Ontario

Trying Sweet Potato

So I've read quite a few articles on how to start your own slips from a sweet potato. They seem to be pretty much unanimous in their instructions, but I have two questions:
- once you've got your tuber suspended over your glass of water, waiting for those slips to start growing, do you need to change the water? That sounds like ample time for bacteria or something nasty to grow in the water.
- Why do we pull off the slips and root them, if there are roots growing out of the bottom of the potato? It would seem logical to me to just take that 'tater with the roots on it and stick it in the ground. Isn't that how it would go in nature? I assume taking the extra time to root a single slip (or five) results in a better plant, or else that's not what would be recommended, but it seems counter-intuitive to me.

TIA! :cool:

imafan26
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Sweet potatoes are usually grown from slips. you could plant the tuber but it is likely that it will just rot. It is what sweet potatoes do when they are left in the ground too long.

I usually do change the water because it does get cloudy.

Once the slips grow they will send out roots quickly

They will also take over if you don't confine them.

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Gary350
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Sweet potato is no different than white potatoes. Sweet potatoes tend to have all its growth at one end of the potato. Put sweet potatoes in the sun soon they will start to grow a lot of vines. You can cut off the end and cut it into pieces if you want but I like to plant the whole potato. 3 years ago I planted 6 potatoes about 3 feet apart in a row. The vines grew 25 feet long and covered a 50 foot circle. The mother plant will make the most potatos on each vine. Every place the vine touches the ground it will grow roots and more potatoes at each satallite location. I plant about the last week of April to avoid frost and I let my plants grow until Halloween when frost will kill the vines. Then I harvested 120 lbs of sweet potatoes from those 6 potatoes.

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sweetiepie
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Location: York, ND (Zone 3b)

I ordered sweet potatoes to try this year, assuming they were much like a potato. :roll: I had no idea they vined out that much, my garden is going to be so full.

Can they be trellised or does that set back the runners? :shock: Maybe I will have to make a temporary space for them in the orchard. Since we bought this place I have added on to my garden every year, this was suppose to be the first year I didn't till up more space. :eek:

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

They sprawl and send out shoots like an octopus, it is not one long vine. I haven't seen anyone try to trellis it.

I have grown them in big pots (tree pot) to contain them. Sweet potato vines are edible, and a lot of different ethnic groups eat them here. Some sweet potatoes only make vines and not tubers. Usually to keep them confined you will need to keep cutting the vines.

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sweetiepie
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Location: York, ND (Zone 3b)

So they put out runners like a strawberry?

Well I love trying new things, that is why my garden keeps getting bigger.

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kayjay
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Location: Southern Ontario

Thanks for the tips. I love sweet potatoes, I could seriously eat them almost every day, and they're perfect for my dietary restrictions. If I had the space, I'd just let them go nuts. Since I don't, I think I'll be putting them in a (very large) container.



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