sweet potatoes

**WiZeR** · 03-03-2006, 06:58 PM

hi lindy, You can buy plants from Thomson and Morgan. I have heard it is hard to grow them in this country. Also I have heard that the sweet potato is the same family as thew dreaded bind weed.

**lindy** · 03-03-2006, 07:29 PM

thanks for the info.

by being in the same family as the bind weed, does that mean once you grow then they will spread their roots all over.

sorry new to all this

**Lesley Jay** · 03-03-2006, 08:57 PM

Hi Lindy. As Wizer said you can buy sweet potato slips from Thompson & Morgan. They are �9.99 for 10 slips. www.thompson-morgan.co.uk They send full cultural instructions but I don't think they are very easy to grow.

**WiZeR** · 03-03-2006, 10:16 PM

Hi lindy. I remembered where I saw that it was related to bindweed. It was at the back of The Vegetable Expert by Dr Hessayon. All it says is that it is related. I'm as new as you so I can't tell you if it's a risk or not. Maybe try it in a barrel?

**nick the grief** · 04-03-2006, 09:03 PM

You won't have any problems Lindy. Sweet Potatoes are a tropical species, the forst good frost will see them off unlike their cousin ! You may need to grow them in a greenhouse as I'm not sure if we get the weather for them - I've never grown them myself so I'm guessing.

**Mycorrhizal** · 06-03-2006, 10:29 AM

Regarding growing sweet potato, I've started producing my own 'slips' from a supermarket-bought potato. This is really easy but has the drawback that you do not know what cultivar you are growing and how cold tolerant it is. Although it is a lot of fun

OK, this is what I did: stuck bamboo sticks in the side of a sweet potato and suspended it in a glass jar of water so that the 'pointy end' is in the water and 3/4 of the potato is submerged. I've been changing the water daily with warm water and it�s started to grow roots already (~4 days). The tops starting to bulge and soon it should be producing green shoots, once these are around 2inch in length you can cut them off and root them in water> these are the slips that T&M sell (although of a different cultivar obviously). Then, for best results they should be grown in a cloche.

Any how, good luck!

Grow truffles!!- www.PlantationSystems.com -Buy truffle trees!!

**Lesley Jay** · 06-03-2006, 10:45 AM

Thanks for that Mycorrhizal. I might give that a go this year - it sounds interesting.

**lindy** · 06-03-2006, 01:15 PM

sweet potatoes

Thanks for all your replies and help.

Mycorrhizal, i will try that now , have got some sweet potatoes i brought at the weekend, so on to it right away. Many thanks.

**Folly** · 06-03-2006, 05:47 PM

sweet potatoes

I grew sweet potatoes last year, in Cheshire (UK). I bought slips from Thompson and Morgan; the first delivery seemed to die (in a greenhouse), so I received a replacement set of ten. Eventually all the slips began to grow, even the ones that had seemed entirely dead.

Most of them survived and grew away when planted out, even though the weather was unseasonably cold in May. I grew them through black plastic and in September covered them in fleece during an early frost. Some leaves were blackened but all the plants survived to October.

I left them as long as possible before harvesting; to my surprise I was rewarded by an excellent crop.

However I learned that they don't store well, so I cured them as well as I could but cooked and froze all that I couldn't use straight away.

The leaves are good stir fried.

The plant needs space but isn't invasive.

I kept some of the roots with a few leaves on. One has survived the winter indoors so I will try to make my own slips! (or would this be cuttings? I'll try anyway)

In essence, well worth a try.

**Mycorrhizal** · 07-03-2006, 01:19 PM

A word of warning fro those using supermarket potatoes: wash them thoroughly. Apparently they may be treated with a growth inhibitor so give them a good rinse.

Folly: That�s really encouraging! � I�m in Cheshire so I�ll definitely be planting an area with these. Planting through black plastic seems the way to go, did you have any problems with slugs attacking the tubers?

Cheers,

Mycorrhizal

Grow truffles!!- www.PlantationSystems.com -Buy truffle trees!!

**Folly** · 07-03-2006, 05:40 PM

sweet potatoes and slugs

Although there were slug eggs laid under the black plastic the sweet potato tubers were untouched.
We have plenty of slugs as we're organic and the neighbouring allotments aren't- the maincrop potatoes were badly holed.

**fiona b** · 08-04-2006, 03:51 PM

i have ordered slips from t&m and am waiting for them to arrive. My family love sweet pots and i am really looking forward to trying to grow them. i hope they dont arrive too soon though, its really wet and cold and I have yet to manage to plant anything on my allotment. Come on spring!

**nick the grief** · 08-04-2006, 04:08 PM

I think you can over winter Sweet pots Fiona, then take your own cutings next year save buying them. Can't remember how you do it though. I'll have a look in the Books

**fiona b** · 09-04-2006, 02:36 PM

thanks nick. i'll keep a look out for the info. I had really hoped to get to my allotment to day but the weather is atrocious - i may need to over winter this season's s.p slips at this rate.

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