Sweet Potatoes

[Bobby Bass]

Finally found some sweet potatoes that have not been sprayed with any growth inhibiter, tonight I went ahead and started them in a couple of bell jars with the hope of raising my own shoots to plant in the garden this summer. Easy enough to do just put tooth picks in the tatters to hold half of the tatter out of the water while the rest is emerged. Come planting time I will slit open a couple of bags of topsoil and plant the shoots putting the bags out in full sun as unlike potatoes they grow downward and love heat.

[SkunkedAgain]

Interesting. I was thinking about growing regular potatoes for the first time this year. Haven't done anything about it yet but should consider the sweet potatoes as well.

What are you doing with the toothpicks there? Do the potatoes grow better partially submerged in water?

[Bobby Bass]

Sweet potatoes are started differently then regular potatoes. Tatters are started with sed potatoes planted in a ditch then cover as the plant grows. This allows the plant to sprout tubers which grow into potatoes. Sweet potatoes are planted from shoots and placed into mounds of dirt and the plant grows like a root crop downwards and do not need to be mounded with dirt. Starting sweet potatoes can be done by growing your own shoots. This is done by setting a sweet potato in a mason jar keeping bottom half of the tatter in water and the other half out. The tooth picks do the job of holding the tatter out of the water. After awhile the part of the tatter in the water will start a root ball while the eyes above the water will grow into green shoots, these are what you will transplant to the garden

Sweet potatoes love heat and sun and are drought tolerant. I will be planting these in bags that will be slit for the transplants to be planted in the bag and then some more slits on the bottom for drainage. I have a spot that gets full sunshine that I will place the bags in. I will update with pictures. Hard part is finding sweet potatoes that have not been treated with a grow inhibitor, most plants in a store are sprayed so you need to go to a food co-op.

[Bobby Bass]

Update for the sweet potatoes shoots:

Even though I bought two sweet potatoes from the same bin at the same time from the local whole foods you can see they grew different size shoots. As a matter of fact the one potato is way behind the other. In this first picture you can see the one on the right has just started to push out green while the one on the left is already pushing out shoots big enough to be harvested. You can see how the tooth picks keep just half of the potato in the mason jar water.

2nd picture shows from left to right shoots already harvested and placed in a larger mason jar where they are rooting. These will be placed in 40# sacks of dirt and placed in a hot spot in the yard where they will get plenty of light and heat to grow. The bottom of the bags will be slit to let water drain and the plants will grow downward into the bag. Later in the summer I will just flip the bags and harvest sweet potatoes as needed. I will plant two to three shoots per bag. Pretty simple really just takes some time getting them ready to grow.

　

[Grainbelt]

My wife loves sweet potatoes. I might get lucky if I plant her some! Do you just snap off the shoots and root them in the water or cut them off? How long did it take to acquire rooted shoots ready to be planted? How long does it take after planting to harvest? I'm trying to figure out a time line and will probably have to start some next year at this point.

[RebelSS]

Interesting, Bobby! I love sweet 'taters!!! 

[Bobby Bass]

On ‎6‎/‎1‎/‎2016 at 2:57 PM, Grainbelt said:

My wife loves sweet potatoes. I might get lucky if I plant her some! Do you just snap off the shoots and root them in the water or cut them off? How long did it take to acquire rooted shoots ready to be planted? How long does it take after planting to harvest? I'm trying to figure out a time line and will probably have to start some next year at this point.

I snap the shoots off and place them in water, They start rooting in a matter of a few days. Like most growing things the longer you let them grow the bigger they will get. I think I will put mine in bags this weekend and I don't expect to do any harvesting till the end of summer. I do have a spot where they will be in full sun most of the day and will stay warm from being up against a southern expose wall that I will have them. I think you can buy shoots on line but they are like 20 bucks for 20 of them that is why I grew my own. Will follow up on this to let  you know how they grow. Daughter likes sweet tatter fry's so they are for her.