Propagating sweet potato leaves?

[hoodat]

The way I do it is to transplant them into seed starting mix in small pots at the first sign of roots and slowly harden them off till they really get going, then plant them into bare ground. Speaking of poky varieties I am trying to get a dark red Oriental sweet potato started and it is taking forever for it to sprout. It must be a tropical that needs hot weather. Good thing I have a long growing season here.

 

[Dace]

Thanks Hoodat.....will do.

Should I put them into a little window sun after I pot them up?

 

[greenSearcher]

I have slips growing on sweet potatoes harvested last year. Since we were talking about sweet potatoes I thought I would ask here. How do I remove the slips from the potato and retain enough roots so it will grow. I know that the slips I bought were pathetic looking when I planted them, but I still got well over a hundred lbs of sweet potatoes from 10 plants. (Good thing the chickens like sweet potatoes) Maybe I should also ask when do I remove them.
Thanks

 

[wifezilla]

Slips without roots will root themselves if you give them enough water. Some slips I used last year had roots, some did not. I got potatoes from all of them.

 

[wsmoak]

The slips I got from Gurneys were pitiful looking. They're still pitiful looking out there in the garden, but the pamphlet that came with them insisted that even if they look awful, they will grow and produce. Apparently they are very hard to kill.

100 pounds from 10 plants? Uh oh...

-Wendy

 

[greenSearcher]

The slips I got from Gurneys were pitiful looking. They're still pitiful looking out there in the garden, but the pamphlet that came with them insisted that even if they look awful, they will grow and produce. Apparently they are very hard to kill.

100 pounds from 10 plants? Uh oh...

-Wendy

Living in N central TX, I have a growing season from the end of Mar to Veterans day, with 2 solid months of 100+ days in July and Aug. SP and Squash love that heat and are about the only thing that grows then. So I got so many SP by doing this.
I planted primarily Georgia Jets witch are fairly compact in their growth. I would pull the vines loose from the ground when they would root outside of the bed (3x10) and toss the vines back into the bed. I had planted 2 beds the end of May, giving lots of room between plants. Once they started, I gave the fertilizer once, and would spray them when the hoppers got too bad w/ Garrett Juice or DE or Safer's soap. The hoppers didn't defoliate them, rather they lived under the leaves and ate everything else. (Last years the hoppers were a plague) They were watered and just grew out in the TX heat until early Oct. I dug them up over a couple days mid Nov so that there wouldn't be any frost damage. I had SPs and roots weaving throughout the both beds, so I got a whole assortment of sized potatoes from a normal med white potato to the size of small cantaloupes. Dehydrated about 3/4s of them, didn't have enough room to store them raw. This year I'll plant one bed, maybe 8 plants. I figure I had so many because they grew for nearly 6 months, could have harvested them any time after mid Sept, but it is still hot then, Ugh.

 

[thistlebloom]

greenSearcher, what is Garret juice? And, does DE work on hoppers?
The last 3 years I've had a horrible amount of them and I don't want to use poison if I can avoid it.
Oh! Welcome to TEG also!