Sweet Potato Slips???

[hoodat]

I have to check at the feed store. I know they had some last year but I thought they looked terrible but I have never seen them before so maybe that is what they are supposed to look like. I was hoping to do my own because I thought I could do better.

The slips you buy usually do look terrible but most of them will grow. You get much better slips if you grow your own. Shipping is hard on them.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

i put white potato peels in a window box and now they are popping up everywhere. they were store potatoes. i want to try some sweet potatoes like that, but i think i'll do cut chunks with eyes on them. good luck!

 

[jojo54]

Sweet potatoes do not to the chunk with the eye like regular potatoes. They are not real potatoes. You need to start the slips in water or sand like others have said with the whole sweet potato. You can take these slips off the sweet potato, root them and pot them. I did it this way when I had sweet potatoes two years ago. Then I planted the whole plant. You do need a fairly big pot though because the roots they grow are crazy.

 

[silkiechicken]

I was always under the impression that you didn't want to use store potatoes because of disease reasons, not because of the anti-sprouting agents?

 

[hoodat]

Don't forget that the tips of sweet potato vines make great greens. The Pillipinos around here grow them mainly for the greens. The tubers are secondary to them.

 

[wifezilla]

I fried some green up in butter last year. Mmmmm. Just grab the younger, brighter ones. The older ones get a bit darker and they are tough.

 

[sheaviance1]

Everyone says that you cannot grow sweet potatoes from chunks, but I have done it and had a good crop. The chunks I planted did have small sprouts, which probably qualifies as a slip. I think it is misleading to say that you cannot put chunks in the ground and have a plant grow.

 

[Ridgerunner]

As tough as sweet potatoes are, I don't doubt you at all. I think one of the considerations is that sweet potatoes need a long hot growing season. Many of us need the head start of starting them early inside. And it is so easy.

Last year, I had a sweet potato slip that was longer than I wanted to plant, thinking the undeveloped root might have trouble supplying that long a slip. So I cut it in half and planted it. I also stuck that top half in the ground. No roots or anything. I did water it when I stuck it in the ground and it set in a little wet for a few days. That top rooted, grew, and produced sweet potates. I never worry about the slips I break off that potato if they don't have roots, but I was a little surprised that that top lived and produced. I do consider sweet potatoes real tough and easy to grow, if you have room and enough warm days.