sweet potato

[anthonyjb]

Anyone grown then, if so any tips please. can you grow them from asda
bought ones.

Anthony

[Alice]

We don't really have the climate for sweet potatoes Anthony, BUT, i'm sure someone on the Vine said they had managed it. Try searching for it.

[Lesley Jay]

Anthony you grow them from 'slips'. You can buy them from www.thompson-morgan.com I haven't grown them myself.

Just looked on their site and they cost £10.49 for 10 slips. Delivery is in May. You need to put sweet potato in their search to find them.

[anthonyjb]

Thank you ladies

Anthony

[Lesley Jay]

Anthony you are very welcome!

[lost the plot]

I Have grown them this year. I put them in a raised bed and covered them with pop bottles with the bottoms cut off. this was fine while the plants are young, but they should really have then been kept covered with clear plastic. I have also heard that planting them through black plastic is good for keeping the roots warm. I beleve you can grow sweet potatoes from the ones you buy in the shops in the same way you do potatoes. Sweet potatoes don`t grow "bushes" like other potatoes they grow "creeping vines" like corgetts. Hope this is some help? try goggling "grow sweet potatoes" That is what i did.

[Alison]

I too grew them this year, ordered them off T&M (£9.99 last year so pretty high rate of inflation at T&M!) and they didn't turn up until well into June which was a bit on the late side to start them off - somebody else on the forum said they'd had the same problem another year. Tried a variety of approaches, in a tub in the greenhouse, in the garden under black plastic and in a potato barrel in the garden. 8 of the 10 slips took but I didn't have much success, suspect the one in the greenhouse needed a bigger tub. I've taken cuttings off the plants and am going to atempt again next year with an earlier start so fingers crossed. One positive thing is that they don't seem to attract any pests (no slug damage at all!). With being late planted I didn't get the excessive vine growth I was expecting and they were (relatively) neat in habit but this matched the growth down below - they looked like sweet potatoes but were more the size of carrots (and smallish ones at that!).

I've read that you can get the bought ones to sprout, you then cut off the sprouts and plant up in compost as slips. I've not done it but somebody did mention that a lot of the shop ones have been treated not to sprout so would suggest you spent a bit more and go for an organic one even if you don't normally.

[Earthbabe]

I've never had a sweet potato sprout on me in the fridge or anywhere else so that could be right. They seem more likely to go soft and mouldy first especially over the areas you think might sprout if allowed.

[ian briggs]

hi ant
u can grow s/pots from asda etc what u do is place the tuber in compost keep it damp and warm when the tubers apear and are large enough break them from the main body the base of the tuber then dip them in rooting compound put them in moist compost place them in a plastic bag tie the top and leave for a week water them and there u have your s/potatoe slips i have done this and have got a lot of s/pot slips for next year o and i got them tesco
one more thing they need a sandy sil to grow in
good luck

[Demeter]

I was talking to a professional gardener about growing sweet potatoes. She said basically the same - start them from tubers, but then take cuttings and root these separately. Apparently they grow more vigorously that way and can even be grown outdoors if you have a warm, sheltered spot. Haven't tried it myself, not sure if I have anywhere to grow them, but she said they were easy if you grow them this way...! (She also said to get them from a farm shop or similar as they are less likely to have been sprayed with anti-sprouting stuff)

[zorbizz]

I purchased slips to plant last year, planted them, they grew well, and after the frost killed the vines (pretty purple flowers and perfectly healthy vines) I dug some of the largest tubers I've ever seen, but there were smaller ones too and a lot of roots. I kept the whole lot and during the winter we ate through most to the tubers. What was left by mid April was dried and partly rotted and I just took the best of this and put it in the ground outside. Nothing happened for 4 weeks, but then slips started to push through the mulch. When I had three groups, I dug one up, finding a very nice-sized tuber (much bigger and better than anything I planted) with about 8 slips growing from it in one spot on the tuber. I separated these from the tuber and each other, planted the slips in one place, and put the tuber back in it's place. All the slips took, and the tuber sent up more shoots in 2 weeks.

This is my first attempt at growing sw. pot. from my own old materials, and I really took no care at all. I do garden in raised beds so the ground was moist but not soggy. I did dust them with sulfur before I planted them to try to reduce further rot. I now have very healthy-lookng vines attempting slowly to take over as much of the garden as I will let them!

z.

[MaureenHall]

Sorry folks, but I need to ask what may seem to you a really stupid question . What are slips?

[Alison]

They're basically the shoots off the tubers which you can plant up. T&M send them out at great expense for you to root up and grow on.

[marigold007]

I've been trying to grow my own sweet potatoes from store bought for a few months now. I doubt I'll get anything this year, but I'll know what to do late this year or early next. I have made four blog post about it to date. Here's a link to the latest, updated today, if you're interested:
Marigold Memoirs: The Saga of the Sweet Potatoes continued