Sweet Potato Growing--need help

[thistlebloom]

Ridgerunner, that was so informative! I've heard of that pit method for a cold frame, using horse manure, but I suppose fresh chicken manure would give off more heat. ?

I've tried sweet potatoes a few times, but we just don't get the heat they like to grow very big. At least mine didn't.
Maybe if I used your method they would get a kick start and do better.

 

[baymule]

I grew sweet potatoes for the first time last year. I grew my slips from a couple of store bought sweet potatoes. I just kept cutting the vines as they grew and sticking them in the ground. When those rooted and grew, I cut slips from them. I posted about them as they grew, and harvesting them.

http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=33974&p=1

 

[April Manier]

My intention is to grow them under high tunnels this year. We are in Oregon and they really prefer heat. I was just going to use organis ones from the store! I'm scared now that they won't work!!!!!!

There is a great compendium of info here though. Thanks to everyone for all the great tips.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

organic sweet potatoes i thought worked for other. i know i had a store bought that sprouted slips for me a couple years ago. i didn't get to planting it to find out if it would produce well here in the Northeast. :/

 

[Nyboy]

I can remember as a class project sticking toothpicks in potato to keep it half way in glass of water. Don't remember what class did once they sprouted.

 

[the1honeycomb]

I bought some sweet potatoes from a farmers market and some from an organic store and just let them start to sprout I pulled off sprouts and put a little water I planted them in black buckets out in the yard and they were very prolific I put some regular dirt in a little bit chicken poo and cut the vines and replanted the vines in a black pot because they like the heat but I didn't do anything special and I cut off the sprouts and then I ate the potatoes that I bought. Worked out that my harvest was free! Huge harvest. Just finished them off. Yum. Even the neighbors came to see the harvest!

 

[ducks4you]

baymule, Great thread--just read all of the posts.
Last year I bought 15 sweet potatoes from the store, read about planting, planted them and exactly ONE grew. The vines were really pretty and the sweet potato did not multiply, just rotted in the ground.
I was home yesterday and spotted a Gurney's catalog with a 50% off coupon. It was about to expire, so I bit the bullet and ordered 12 Sweet Potato plants. I ordered "Beauregard" bc I had read AND heard on a SC gardening program (from Clemson Univ.) that this is pretty easy to grow.
They will arrive sometime on or after Memorial Day.
So...the slips are vines?
How, again, do you harvest and store them for the next year?

 

[Ridgerunner]

After you harvest them, put them out of the sun where they have really good ventilation. After a while they pretty much heal any damage you do when digging them. I think higher humidity is OK or maybe even good at this stage, but I just store them in my workshop out of the sun in this phase.

Then store them in a dry low-humidity place with fairly warm temperatures, say around 55 to 60 degrees. That's the ideal. I don't have that so I keep them in a wooden box in my attached garage. I just do the best I can and don't fret about it too much. We ate one last night from that box that I grew last season.

It is important to not let them freeze in storage or in the field. Try to dig them before your first frost. If you get hit with a frost before you can dig them, immediately cut the vine off and dig them as soon as you can. If those vines get frostbitten, rot quickly spreads into the underground potato.

They really are a warm weather crop.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Park Seed has Beauregard 25 for $17 something. I have sweet potato's sprouted from the store that are not organic. the orange are from Walmart. I think I will start some more since they might be Beauregard.

 

[ducks4you]

So you all think "Beauregard" is a good starter Sweet potato?
Thanks, everyone!! Looking forward to my 2013 sweet potato harvest. My coupon got me 12 plants for $8.99
Ridgerunner, thanks for the harvest advice--makes sense.