# Starting Sweet Potatoes



## Prepadoodle (May 28, 2013)

NOTE: This applies to those of us in warm climates. For those in harsher environments, you might have to wait a few months! I usually start about 2 months before planting out time.

For many of us, it's time to start your sweet potatoes. Yes, sweet potatoes like warm loose soil, but it takes a couple of months to get them ready to plant out so start now!

Get yourself a couple of good firm, unblemished, mature sweet potatoes and give them a good washing. Next, find a glass for each one and stick 3 or 4 toothpicks into the potato to suspend it vertically in the glass. (I like to have about 1/3 of the spud above the rim of the glass)

Now fill the glass with regular old water until about half of it is covered and put the glass on your kitchen windowsill. In a few days to a week you will start to see roots form. Top off the water as needed, and change it once a week or so. If you see any rot, either discard that potato or just cut the rot out.

You will soon see sprouts coming off the top. Once these slips get to be 5" or 6" long, twist them off and put them in another glass so the bottom 2 inches or so are covered with water. They will root, and once the roots are a couple of inches long, you can transplant them into flats or (if the soil is warm) right into your garden. One sweet potato can produce as many as 50 slips!

The main thing sweet potatoes need (or any root crop, for that matter) is good loose, fluffy soil. They can't expand into yummy goodness in hard soil!

I usually turn the bed in the fall. In early spring, I "solarize" the bed by covering it with a clear plastic drop cloth. This acts like a mini greenhouse to warm the soil earlier. Once it warms up a bit, I pull back the plastic, water it good, then replace the plastic. 

This will sprout most of the weed seed. The plastic blocks any further water from getting to the plants, and it gets hot under there, so the weeds quickly wither and die. Once the weeds die, remove and store the plastic for another time. This will drastically reduce the amount of weeding I have to do for the season and the warmer soil can give the garden a few weeks head start. 

Sweet potatoes need quite a bit of room. I usually plant two rows in a 4' wide raised bed, with about 18" between plants. They grow fast and the vines try to escape the beds, but they don't run all that fast so it's easy to just put them back where they belong.

You can expect to get a LOT of sweet potatoes from one bed 4' wide and 10' long. I mean more than a wheelbarrow full. They store well, so there's no such thing as too many!


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## Arklatex (May 24, 2014)

Great post!

I've never heard of that trick with the plastic sheeting. I will try that this year.

If you have hard soil you can plant taters in a stack of old tires or similar stackable containers. As the crop grows you add another tire and fill with soil. The tater will root into it. When you're ready to harvest just pull em apart and have at it.


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## Prepadoodle (May 28, 2013)

Hmmmm, I might be jumping the gun here a little, but i do it every year!

You might want to wait a few more weeks if you don't have room to keep a flat of pants in the house.

Solarizing the bed helps, and can give you a few weeks head start. You can also cover the bed with black plastic after you solarize, then slash an X , and plant the plants through the black plastic. Using a floating row cover helps keep plants warm too.

It was like spring today, I can't wait to get started!


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## BagLady (Feb 3, 2014)

Onion time too. 
We just plant left over sweet potato's in a small area behind the house and wait for the "slips" to come up. Then we plant those in the big garden.
But then, we have warmer weather than Virginia.
I really like the tire idea. I've heard of doing that with regular taters too.
It would beat the heck out of hoeing them!


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## dwight55 (Nov 9, 2012)

Prepadoodle said:


> ........Solarizing the bed helps, and can give you a few weeks head start. You can also cover the bed with black plastic after you solarize, then slash an X , and plant the plants through the black plastic. Using a floating row cover helps keep plants warm too.
> 
> It was like spring today, I can't wait to get started!


I really like the "solarizing" trick, . . . and I have really wanted to try the black plastic, . . . might do that this year.

It's like spring here too, . . . like spring in Anchorage, . . . 35 / snowing / raining / 10 mph wind = _miserable !!!_

May God bless,
Dwight


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## bigwheel (Sep 22, 2014)

Thanks for those tips. I ran the old tire concept by the Warden last year but she said we aint having a bunch of old tires laying around in the yard. A pal grows a garden in plastic kiddie swimming pools from Wally World. Anybody do that? Our soil is real dense black clay.


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## Prepadoodle (May 28, 2013)

Swimming pools, no, but I have several plastic tubs on the deck for herbs. These were made to mix cement or mortar in, but are the perfect size and shape for growing. (roughly 2 feet X 3 feet and maybe 10 inches deep) I got them at Lowes or Home Depot for about $15 each, and they should last a very long time.


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

My brother made a telescoping potato planter out of plastic barrels. It is like the tire idea, but the layers telescope up and down into each other, so you don't have to fling tires around. I am really inspired to get going on both potatoes and sweet potatoes this year. Thanks for the ideas.

When I lived about 100 miles south of Tucson and in a higher elevation, I had problems each spring with blister beetles on the potatoes. They would come in a swarm and literally eat every leaf in a matter of hours. We would shake them off the plants into cans of kerosine. I sure hope I don't have those awful things here in Tucson. If they get squished, they emit a really strong acid that will burn and blister the skin. (Got one down my pants one day - not nice!) They are deadly to horses. Even one dead beetle in hay can kill a horse, so I'll be watching pretty close for those things.


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