Growing Sweet potatoes from tubers

[veggiechicken]

Your Sweet Pots are the hare to my tortoises, BigM, mine took months to reach the sprouty stage! Of the two I potted up on 5th July the sprouty one looks good, the other shows no sign of life.

Will I be able to keep it growing until next year?

[veggiechicken]

BM, re your two SP's in the tray - the one without shoots appears to have reddish spots near the top of it. Are these the start of shoots? That's how mine looked initially. Fingers crossed

[Ananke]

I ended up taking the cocktail sticks out of my SP and planted the whole potato in the greenhouse border. The slips are nice and strong looking but still really small, not even 6in yet. I'm assuming it's too late in the season to hope for anything this year.

[BarleySugar]

I set my plants back by putting them outside to harden off just as we got torrential rain and gales a while back. They have been planted in the plot for about 6 weeks now and are looking better, but could probably have done with more sun (like everything). Whether I get any sweet potatoes though only time will tell.

[chris]

Don't let them get potbound, or you'll end up with a twisted root of sweet potato, almost impossible to clean!

[Bigmallly]

I plan to leave them in water till the slips are about 10-12" long, then I will root the slips in water before potting up......hopefully that will be around next March............

[veggiechicken]

If I'd left mine in water to reach 10-12" it would have taken until next March at least. They were really slow to grow. I'll keep them in the pot overwinter and see what happens. Have just bought some more SPs to try again.

[veggiechicken]

UPDATE on a January SP that has been suspended in water for 6 months.......Today, it has a shoot Both the halves that have sprouted shoots have been the pointed ends - ?the end away from the stem from the parent plant?
Maybe I'll cut off the pointed tips of the SPs for sprouting and eat the rest!
Is this the SP shooting season?

BM, does my theory agree with your sprouting bits?

[Bigmallly]

Yes VC, my bottom is sprouting but the top isn't............

[veggiechicken]

I think we need to agree on where our bottoms are! - before I eat all the wrong bits
I call the bottom the end that seems to have been snapped from the root - usually leaving a scar or a raw bit. The top is the pointy end. I've sorted my latest batch into pointy end up (I think!).

[Bigmallly]

Hmmm, everything I have ready says the pointy end is the bottom.......to be honest, I have no idea how they grow. Vertical or horizontal.......

[veggiechicken]

Lets agree that the pointy end is at the bottom then and the rounded end is the top. I suppose it makes sense to you men!

[Bigmallly]

I did see a tubeyoub where the SP was laid on its belly in a carton of water and it produced masses of roots & slips, please don't ask me which end is the belly........

[veggiechicken]

That's easy - its the opposite side to the back......

[Bigmallly]

This is the vid I was talking about. The strange thing is, unless my old eyes are deceiving me, it appears that both roots & slips are coming out of the same end...........

Growing Sweet Potato in a container: Transplanting - YouTube