Grow your own Sweet Potato Slips...

[Mamzie]

Wondering if anyone has grown their own slips and/or has any Sweet Potato tips please?

Myself and my smallest will be trying this out, just to see if we can do it, but will likely grow a couple in school garden as well as home then as we get a shorter outdoor season here as quite high

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDc6R-nfwcM

[Bren In Pots]

Mamzie I've found an older thread hope this helps until someone comes along who has grown them.

https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...elp_96506.html

[Mamzie]

Mamzie I've found an older thread hope this helps until someone comes along who has grown them.

https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...elp_96506.html

Thank you for that, I did have a quick look around and could see a few growing threads, but nought about actually starting your own slips x

[bikermike]

Rather than start slips, I took cuttings of last year's plant (very easy to do, they root in water) and have overwintered them in the house.

The main thing seems to be the warmest possible soil you can get.

[greenishfing]

I grew my own once. I had bought them from a supplier one year and the next year I grew my own from them. I have had friends try to sprout supermarket ones to no avail. I believe they are sprayed with something to stop them sprouting. I grew them in the greenhouse and although they grew the crop was pretty pathetic. I didn't bother again.

[veggiechicken]

I've tried several times - and failed!

https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...ers_62692.html

[roitelet]

I grew my own slips last year. Bought some bio sweet potatoes from the supermarket thinking that They would not have been sprayed with an Anti germinating product, half buried them in damp soil at the end of February and kept them really warm and they sprouted. Took off the slips and potted them up. Kept them warm and gradually hardened them off to the tunnel to plant out after the last frost date (late May here). Left them until October before harvesting. I did get a crop but nothing to write home about. I think that apart from warmth they need a really rich soil and plenty of water. The flowers are quite pretty though but they do take up a lot of space.

[ameno]

Shop-bought sweet potatoes aren't ideal for this. They are often sprayed with a hormone to prevent sprouting, and they are also likely to be a variety that doesn't perform well in our cool climate.
Buying slips of a good variety, then keeping them going year to year as cuttings, is your best bet.
But if you really want to try getting slips from a shop-bought one, buy an organic one, wash it well (but be sure not to scrape off the skin), then place it on its side in a tray of moist compost, so it's only half buried, and leave it somewhere warm (20c or more) and light. Hopefully it will sprout with a few weeks.

Rather than start slips, I took cuttings of last year's plant (very easy to do, they root in water) and have overwintered them in the house.

The main thing seems to be the warmest possible soil you can get.

Same here. Mine are in pots in the bathroom at the moment.
And last year's ones were grown from cuttings from the previous year.
I don't use the potted cuttings directly for the following year's plants, though, as they tend to get rather straggly and pot-bound, and so I worry about the subsequent tuber quality. Instead, I move them somewhere warmer and start feeding them in March, then take fresh cuttings of the new growth which comes.

I probably could grow from slips as well, if I wanted, as I still have quite a few of last year's harvest left, and I can't stop the damn things from sprouting. I have to rub the sprouts off every week or so.

[Bonjour]

Last year I bought "Beauregard" slips from Suttons, which were nice slips and took well to being potted up to grow on. Unfortunately, my growing efforts turned to rat-poo last year, due to a number of family things that had to take precedence, so my sweet potatoes never got planted out and languished in the greenhouse in small pots.

In December, while clearing out the greenhouse, I found that two of the stunted and dead plants had produced a small tuber each. Having nothing to lose and everything to gain, I decided to try growing slips from the tubers.

I cut them in half, crossways, (I've since learned this is not a good idea) and stood the 4 halves in a shallow dish of water in a heated propagator. After about 3 weeks, 2 of the halves (both bottoms) began to rot but the other two produced a few shoots, which continued to slowly grow and by mid-January were just at the stage ready to pick off the spud when the larger tuber turned rotten and took half its slips with it. The good slips were hastily picked off to save them being infected.

I'm currently growing on the few remaining slips in a glass of water. They each have a few short roots and I'll soon be potting them up to grow on indoors. They are between 3 and 4 inches tall. The remaining half tuber has two more tiny slips growing, so I'll keep fingers crossed for that one. The plan is to make a hotbed using horse muck about late February/early March to give the plants an early start to their outdoor career and hopefully a long enough season for a worthwhile crop.

As an aside. At the beginning of January, my wife spotted a sweet potato at the local supermarket with what appeared to be a tiny "chit" near one end. She bought it and we now have that tuber, which looks very much like a Beauregard or similar variety, half-in a glass of water, where the chit is ever so slowly turning into a slip and a small collection of roots are forming at the bottom end. It will be interesting to see how this one gets on, compared to the ones of known origin.

[ameno]

If you think the shoots on your tubers might not grow big enough before the tuber rots, just pull them off and root them anyway.
The cuttings really don't need to be as big as the ones the seed companies send you. I accidentally knocked off a 2 inch length from one of my overwintering plants last March, so, not wanting to waste it, I rooted it in water and potted it on. It went on to give the biggest yield of all of my plants.
They all grow to the same size eventually, small ones just take a little longer.

[Bonjour]

First attempt at pictures, hope it works. Here's the surviving Beauregard slips and the last half a tiny tuber with shoots. The other picture is the unknown supermarket jobby, complete with one very slow growing shoot and several roots.

[ameno]

That shoot on that Beauregard tuber is about the same size as the one I grew last year. Try and get it to grow a little bigger if you can, but if it won't then that should still be big enough to root and grow.
I'm pretty sure all they need is one leaf and leaf bud at the top, and one leaf bud at the bottom (from which the roots will grow). They are one of the easiest plants to root from cuttings, as I'm sure you've found.

Also, if you find you don't have enough slips, since you've started these ones so early, you could pot them up and grow them on a bit somewhere warm and then take more cuttings from them. Both the new cutting and the original you took the cutting from (assuming you don't cut too much off) should grow and crop.

[Bonjour]

That shoot on that Beauregard tuber is about the same size as the one I grew last year. Try and get it to grow a little bigger if you can, but if it won't then that should still be big enough to root and grow.
I'm pretty sure all they need is one leaf and leaf bud at the top, and one leaf bud at the bottom (from which the roots will grow). They are one of the easiest plants to root from cuttings, as I'm sure you've found.

Also, if you find you don't have enough slips, since you've started these ones so early, you could pot them up and grow them on a bit somewhere warm and then take more cuttings from them. Both the new cutting and the original you took the cutting from (assuming you don't cut too much off) should grow and crop.

Thanks for the tips Ameno.

I had no idea when the correct time to start them was. I just found the two little tubers when clearing up and thought it a shame to waste them. I'll definitely try cuttings if the slips get big enough before planting time.

[ameno]

Thanks for the tips Ameno.

I had no idea when the correct time to start them was. I just found the two little tubers when clearing up and thought it a shame to waste them. I'll definitely try cuttings if the slips get big enough before planting time.

It is pretty early, yeah, especially if you plan on planting outdoors. They grow pretty quickly if kept somewhere suitably warm.
You may actually find your potted slips get too big by planting time. If you find they are pot-bound by the time you plant them out, I would recommend giving the roots a good haircut. They will soon grow new roots in their place, but if you leave the roots all twisted around each other like that the the tubers will end up grow like that, too, and you'll have a twisted mass of strangled tubers all in one lump.

[Logunner]

This thread has made the decision on what is going in my hotbed.