Sweet potatos

[Hassan]

Has any one grown any sweet potatos before? I would love to give them ago but i cant seem to get them started using the half submerged in water method.

Has any one seen any being sold in garden centers and is it to late to try them or will they work at all?

[endymion]

I hope somebody will give you some advice, because I could do with some too. My sweet potato was 'started' in a bulb jar early March, the roots appeared at the beginning of April but the shoots have only just started to grow.

[Bramble_killer]

I grew them last year buying pot ready plants (from suttons I think). Got a rubbish crop but I was late and i think I squished in too many plants.

So from last year's small roots, I stuck some in water, potted them on and kept them alive over winter (not very carefully) but they survived. repotted them in spring and now they are in the greenhouse until the weather is warm enough. I have 2 growing in a 80cm diameter tub.

They are tender plants, related to morning glory and you can eat the leaves (I didn't). They need a long growing season, 4 months.

Planting them on a ridge/mound seems to be what growers do. I'll post a photo if anyone is interested.

[chris]

aye!

[roitelet]

Grew some a couple of years back. Started them early, Feb I think, from a shop bought tuber. Took the shoots as cuttings and rooted them. Planted them out when it was warm enough. They need a lot of water and take up a large space. The result was enough for one meal! Not something I will grow again but they were quite interesting and the flowers were pretty.

[bearded bloke]

Did you buy organically grown tubers ? supermarket ones are imports which are generally surface treated which hinders/stops chitting.
I am trying things & will put some pics up this evening if you want

[VeggieNut]

I grew some last year from slips bought from Marshalls I think.
They were pretty feeble and didn't produce anything worth eating, but, I did grow them outside in pots. I think they'd do better in a polytunnel as their a bit tender,
Good Luck

[Florence Fennel]

My daughter asked me only this week if I could grow sweet potatoes as she uses such a lot, but I told her it was too late and I don't really think I have the space for growing a large quantity in my little stayput.

[esrikandan]

I tried them once a few years back. Left a shop bought sweet potato in a jar of water (topping up daily and changing every few days). I let it root and send up some shoots. Once the shoots were about 8-10cm long I carefully cut them of the potato (with a small amount of the potato) and planted them in small pots of fresh compost. They look a bit sad for a few days but them spring to life. After being in the pots for a couple of weeks I planted them out at the allotment.

The plants grew fairly well, and come autumn I dug them up, and while there was something to harvest, the resultant tubers were very thin and not enough substance to them to make it worthwhile.

This was from 6 plants and I think the total weight harvested was nuder 300gms!

Certainly wouldn't bother with them again!

[roitelet]

Did you buy organically grown tubers ? supermarket ones are imports which are generally surface treated which hinders/stops chitting.
I am trying things & will put some pics up this evening if you want

They were supermarket tubers and not organic. Just tried one to see what happened.

[mothhawk]

I'm looking at my American vegetable grower's bible here, and it says to set out the slips in loose fertile soil that has been augmented with compost.

Only fertilize if the plants don't look healthy, as too much nitrogen will "diminish yield and produce long thin roots".

It also says, in cooler climates, to use a black plastic mulch, (presumably to help keep the soil warmer, as it grows best with a soil temp of 18-32 degrees C).

[snohare]

I tried some slips from T & M a couple of years back, having tried unsuccessfully with the rooting in water method. Sadly, they succumbed to damping off, or something similar.
But to my amazement, what did I see in B & Q the other day, but a shelf full of healthy, vigorous looking "Beauregard" sweet potatoes. So of course I couldn't resist, and bought one.
(Well, they were about the only healthy vegetable plants in the place. )
My cunning plan, now that this thread has reminded me of the newbie lurking on the fridge freezer top, is to stick it in a buried florist's bucket, inside another bucket that I can fill with water for supplementary watering (only get to the allotment once a week), and put a glass or plastic cloche on top to heat it up a bit. I reckon with a plant that large and healthy at this time of year, even with the Aberdeenshire climate I stand a chance of getting a meal's worth.

[Hassan]

I wasent going to get any since every one is saying it wont do to well, but i was in B&Q and saw a few sweet potato plants and had to give it a try. Since it looks like they need a warm enviroment im going to put them in a growbag blowaway (any one know where to get cheap ones from?), im not sure on how big a pot they will need, im guessing the bigger the better. I will let you know how i get on but i am expecting to fail since its my second time at growing anything, last year we grew some tomotos and now we are hooked

[snohare]

Poundstretcher usually do a quite reasonable blowaway Hassan, but if you can't find a good one for the moment (and the problem is finding decent quality ones, not cheap ones) then maybe you could try using water-filled plastic drinks bottles in a circle round the seedling to concentrate the heat, meantime. I can't remember the source, but I saw that done in the USA on a website, apparently a very popular technique for DIY cloches there.
Mine is still sitting on the windowsill, but I'm about to pot it up into a bigger pot, with some banana skins in the soil to help it along.

[shona_b]

Hi all - I have 4 plants (bought as plants rather than grown from a tuber) on the allotment growing under glass and they are looking quite healthy (on the suface anyway!). One of my fellow allotmenteers said you can take a cutting from the "vine" and keep it in water to shoot then plant for use next year.....anyone got any experience of this method? I suppose if i kept it indoors overwinter it might stand a chance?