How to grow sweet potatoes locally

May 06, 2015

by Judy Wall

Unlike the potato, which is grown from tubers, sweet potatoes are started from “slips.” To create slips, a sweet potato tuber is planted indoors in March. One tuber can produce several slips.

To do so you will need to obtain a sweet potato which has been stored at room temperature, not in cold storage or one which has not been treated to prevent sprouting. You can buy from sweet potato producers if you're looking for a specific variety on line or, if you want to experiment, buy an organic sweet potato which is unlikely to have been treated.

Take the sweet potato and place the pointed end down. Take 4 tooth picks, poke them into the sweet potato sides so that the tuber in suspended in a glass jar, where the pointed end is not touching the bottom of the glass jar. Fill the jar with water, then place in a warm place indoors. Remember to check the jar every few days and top up the water. After a few weeks you will see the tuber produce roots. After the roots grow for a couple of weeks you will notice small sprouts start to appear at the top of the tuber, which will turn into slips. Let these slips grow until several inches long (20cm) and develop leaves. Then cut the slips where they join into the tuber and place these in a jar filled with water. Again remembering to top up the water every few days. Once these slips have roots which are a good couple of inches long, you can transplant the slips into a soilless growing media and grow them on until around early June when you can transplant them into your outdoors vegetable garden. For the month of June initially you want to be careful and keep the soil above 60oF, on cooler days/nights cover them with thick clear plastic. Sweet potato plants are a vine, requiring full sun and a warm summer for a good yield. Before the soil goes to 55oF you will dig up your plants, and collect the tubers. Be careful not to drop or bruise them. Keep them in an open warm place, 85-90oF, for 5 days to cure, where they will grow a second skin which will seal the sweet potato, and keep a couple of tubers, so you can start your own plants for next year's growing season. Sweet potatoes are best stored at room temperature. The sweet potato is tasteless fresh, the flavor improves with several months of proper room temperature storage.

For book lovers, look for Sweet Potatoes For The Home Garden: With Special Techniques For Northern Growers by author Ken Allan, of Ontario.  

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