SQWIB
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First ever Sweet Potato Harvest

I couldn't be happier with this test run, I started some slips from an old sweet potato and planted 3 slips in one of my raised beds.
I'll most likely try 9-12 slips next season.
These truly are a set it and forget it plant, other than pinching a few flowers here and there and directing/trimming vines a few times, and that's it, gotta love that!


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Gary350
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SQWIB wrote:I couldn't be happier with this test run, I started some slips from an old sweet potato and planted 3 slips in one of my raised beds.
I'll most likely try 9-12 slips next season.
These truly are a set it and forget it plant, other than pinching a few flowers here and there and directing/trimming vines a few times, and that's it, gotta love that!
]
Yes plant them an forget them almost maintenance free crop. I keep the vines growing in a circle around the mother plant. Vines sprout roots an grow more sweet potatoes. Cover vines with soil every 16" to insure they sprout roots. It is very easy to grow 20 to 25 lbs of potatoes for each plant that includes the mother load and all the satellite potatoes. Sweet potatoes are fun just to see how many pounds can be grown from only a few plant in a small spot. Try growing white sweet potatoes sometime they are a good substitute for, white Idaho, Pontiac, Russet potatoes, they make good, french fries, baked potatoes, mash potatoes.

imafan26
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Some varieties of sweet potato vines are edible. Cook like spinach. Some do taste better than others. I grow the Okinawan sweet potato and the tuber and vines are edible. I have another variety that is grown by local Filipino and those are grown specifically for the vines and don't make much of a tuber. Sweet potatoes can take up a lot of space.

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Gary350
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imafan26 wrote: Sweet potatoes can take up a lot of space.
If you let vines grow in any direction they want they will take up a lot of space. Once a week I rake vines around in a circle they grow in a very small compact circle. After I rake vines in a circle I shovel soil on the vines every 16" to 18" this helps them to grow more roots. The extra satellite roots not only grows satellite potatoes it also helps to produce larger potatoes for the mother plant where it was planted in the center of the circle. Mother plant makes potatoes 1 to 3 lbs each, satellite potatoes are smaller 1/2 to 1 lb each. My plants make about 25 lbs of potatoes from each plant. Sweet potatoes are hot weather plants they love full sun all day in 100 degree weather. Rain 1 time a month is no problem for sweet potatoes. I let my plants grow until frost kills them in November about 6 months after they were planted. If you live where it does not frost plants will probably grow for several years I have no clue what that will do to the potato crop. Online YouTube videos show commercial growers only let sweet potatoes grow a certain number of months then machines dig them up. The last time I grew orange color sweet potatoes there were 3 plants in a 10 ft diameter circle.

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TheWaterbug
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Gary350 wrote:After I rake vines in a circle I shovel soil on the vines every 16" to 18" this helps them to grow more roots. The extra satellite roots not only grows satellite potatoes it also helps to produce larger potatoes for the mother plant where it was planted in the center of the circle. Mother plant makes potatoes 1 to 3 lbs each, satellite potatoes are smaller 1/2 to 1 lb each.
Interesting. I just ordered slips from Sand Hill Preservation, and in their growing instructions they specifically recommend _not_ to allow satellite rooting:
As the plants grow, you will need to take care that the plants don’t set down roots away from the main plant. Check for this by gently lifting the vines every once in a while to keep them from setting down roots along the vine. If they do this, and they will in moist soil, your yield can be decreased to next to zero. The only place you want them to root is at the spot where you planted the original plant.
I wonder why their experience is so different from yours.

SQWIB
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@TheWaterbug, I plan on doing the latter and try to grow the vines on trellises, like I did last season.

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Gary350
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SQWIB, You should grow white color sweet potatoes they are just as easy to grow as orange color sweet potatoes. Rake vines in a circle once a week I often get about 25 lbs of potatoes per plant. White sweet potatoes make good, french fries, baked potatoes, stew, fried potato, mashed potatoes taste slightly different than Russet or Kennebic.

Waterbug, I don't know why instructions would say not to allow sweet potato vines to root. Sweet potatoes are a lot like melon if melon vines root it supplies more water to the plant & melons to make larger melons than mother plant roofs can provide along. I have grown sweet potatoes both ways and I always get more potatoes and larger potatoes when I help the vines root every 18".



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