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biga3723

Okinawan Purple Sweet Potato in containers

BigA3723
12 years ago

My first attempt at sweet potatoes in containers just started using 18 gal rubbermaid containers and 5-1-1 mix. I purchased some 8-20-30 fertilizer with the slips I got from Steele Plant Co and got my okinawan pimple slips from glasshousworks.

I tried various options such as one plant per container and some with two plants. I also varied how much fertilizer used since I read less fertilizer makes better tasting potatoes. Also, the 5-1-1 mix without lime is close to 5 ph which is lowest range of the plants, so I added lime to just a few to see outcome,

My one question concerns the purple vines, they seem to be growing very slow in relation to other varieties. Surprisingly, I moved a little of the soil and there is a blanket of roots from one end to the other after only 3 weeks, even the one container that has 3 vine pieces that had broken off in shipping that I rooted in water and planted in a container. Those tiny pieces are currently only 5 leaves and 4 inches long so far yet have roots everywhere.

The only other curiosity is that there is a color fluctuation from a yellow green to bright green across many different variables. Actually, I have one container with two plants where one is bright green with barely any purple on stems and growing faster and the other one is the normal all purple stems and yellow green leaves.

Everything is growing steadily, but it just seems the bright green ones are vowing a little faster. Is this a normal color fluctuation of this vine?

I can add that I went ahead and got some foliage-pro fertilizer to make sure no minerals were missing and after two uses at 1 tsp per gallon, it seems all the new leaves are brighter green color.

When I made 5-1-1 mix, I found something called Azomite with 66 trace minerals that I added to all containers. Is it possible this is more concentrated in some containers and not others and account for color differences?

Comments (4)

  • BigA3723
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Slightly different subject but also pertains to this forum, I have potatoes growing in 5 gal buckets that were planted in march and flowered a few weeks back. They were starting to get a lighter color at bottom and I was thinking of harvesting them soon. I gave them a little foliage-pro slightly over a week ago and suddenly they have flowers again, maybe on different stems, but I can't say for sure.

    When do I harvest?

    This was my first garden purchase and was part of planting kit from Lowes that doesn't say what type of potato it is. The picture is of a brown medium size potato with smooth skin, maybe Yukon gold? The details just say size is "topsize" and harvest is "midseason".

    One curiosity is that the first potato flowers never opened up, they just kinda fell off in bulb form, the current ones are fully opened, white petals with large protruding yellow center.

    Fertilizer was osmocote 14-14-14 mixed with miracle grow organic mix when planted and maybe 3 applications of Fish/Seaweed 2-3-1 in first month, and then one foliage-pro application 10 days ago

  • BigA3723
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Eventhough I didn't get any answers, I figured it out. I started poking around and decided to harvest one container of Centennial sweet potatoes, and dug around in one of the purples sweet potato containers and pulled out a big one,

    My questions:

    The color of my potatoes look somewhat purple striped and mostly white on Okinawan and light orange on centennial. do the colors darken as they cure? I had a tiny purple one the size of my inky I pulled out last week that was dark purple, but do the colors come in on bigger ones as they cure? I pulled the, out 2 hours ago. I

    I thought it might be too early because the majority of the potatoes were fairly small, yet I had on really large one the size you see in supermarket also.

  • faerygardener z7 CA
    12 years ago

    If there are no answers here, you might also post the curing question on Vegetable gardening and Potagers. Haven't grown sweet potatoes myself, so can't help you out.

    If you post a pic of the potato on the kit, we can probably help you out. Sounds like your kit is a russet - I think they'd note if it was Yukon gold.

  • rednofl
    12 years ago

    My understanding is the purple if they are Okinawan take appx 130-140 heat days days. rule of thumb above 70 degrees
    most orange are 90-110 days to produce edible size tubers. If you have any of the purple ones to small to eat that you are willing to share for postage please let me know. I have the dark purple skin dark purple flesh that I could share if your interested