Sweet potato's, give me a clue

[Evelyn J]

My nephew and i spent the afternoon drawing out our planting plan for the forth coming year and and were convinced that we wanted to grow a lot more than we have space for, to our amazement we found we actualy have 9 SQft spair!

So as he loves sweet potato's and he has been helping me out so much i thought we would give them a go, only thing is i have no idea how to grow them at all.

Can any of you give me a step by step how to?

Thank you in advance

Eve

[Green Aura]

I don't think they grow very well over here. I think they need a warmer climate, or longer season (or both) - I can't remember. Although they may have strains that do now of course.

I wouldn't give too much room to them in case you don't get any return, but if you do get some back let us know. I'd love to grow them too.

[alec-ish]

i did see some sweet potatoe seed that claimed was ok to grow in uk climate but really sorry cant remember wehre ill have another look and see if i can find it again
you grow them the same way as potatoes but i think they are better off in the greenhouse if you have one?

[Nomada]

You could give it a go!

Try this link

http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allabo ... atoes.html

[crowsashes]

im sooo going to give that a go! love sweet potato hopefully ill have some sucess

[Rosendula]

I've tried and failed 2 years running using shop-bought sweet potatoes. However, the shop I bought them from was my local 'green' grocer, who isn't actually all that green. I've given in buying things like nectarines from him because even after a good wash they taste funny and my mouth completely dries up and takes hours to get back to normal I can only assume chemicals were used. So it could be that my 'seeds' have been sprayed with some sort of growth inhibitor, and, like Green Aura says, our season is too short and cold really. But if you want to give it a try, here's what you do:

The hard way that hasn't yet worked for me

• Buy a nice-looking sweet potato around mid-April - make sure you get an organic one if you want a better chance of success than me.
• Suspend it over a jar of water with the pointed end down. About a century or so later it will grow roots, then shoots (called 'slips').
• Pull off the slips when they are about 4 inches long, hopefully about 2 weeks later, more likely 2 months later, and either root the slips by placing in another jar of water or pot them directly.
• Plant out when they have rooted.
• Dig up around Hallowe'en-ish, tut loudly, and chuck the whole lot on the compost heap.

Probably a more successful way

• Buy the slips from a seed catalogue and make sure they are produced for growing in your country. (Put 'buy sweet potato slips' in Google and you get a few. I obviously haven't tried any of them).
• Cloches would probably help.

Good luck

[Evelyn J]

Ok, so i have now read every web page conected with sweet potato's (or atleast it feels like i have) and have decided to start sliping some of them now, a bit early but it gives us a few atempts to get it right, then pot up on the windowcill, then off out into the green house then into the ground under a closh, it's a lot of mither to be honest, but as i have little else to do for the next ever i'll give it a go, and will let you know how it worked out.

Eve

[jampot]

i have a sweet potato in my cupboard at the mo ( dark warm ish) it seems to be sproutng away happilywithout the need for water but as i have nowhere to grow anything this year i will not be able to try this project. but i would urge the rest of you to try this way as well as the "avocado stone" style

[Nomada]

I found a load of my shop bough sweet potatoes with sprouts on earlier last week. I cut off the bits that were sprouting (slips) and put them in compost. They grew roots really quickly so I pulled them off. Now I have 8 sweet potato slips with roots growing in soil. I don't know how big a pot I need to put them in as they get bigger. If I don't get an allotment this year I may have to give them away.

[Annpan]

I notice that Thomson and Morgan are selling slips on their website, if anyone is interested

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/potatoes ... otato.html