Sweetpotatoes and irish (white) potatoes are very different. Not much the same about growing them. Sweetpotatoes are warm-season (tropical) and potatoes are cool-season. What you harvest with sweetpotatoes are roots, with potatoes its tubers that grow out of the stem. So hilling has a benefit for 'regular' potatoes only. I'm sure there's alot of other info if you search previous posts.

And sweets are grown from plants called "slips" while Irish potatoes are grown using seed potatoes. Most varieties of sweets produce long vines. Lots of previous discussions here about how to grow them.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet Potato discussions

Hill the rows before setting out the slips as the roots need about an extra foot of looser soil.

Sweetpotatoes tend to produce about 6 potatoes per plant.

I'm no expert on growing sweet potatoes since I only did it last year, but for what it is worth, I found them to be very easy! They only had one pest and frankly, even with average care they were robust enough that they probably could have weathered that without my intervention. Oh, the pest? A less well known cousin of our favorite Japanese Beetle, the Asiatic Garden Beetle. It has all of the charm of the JB but with the added bonus of only feeding after dark!

sweet potato's are a lot easier to grow and they can produce multiple tubers and in the right climate zone all year round for the right zone they can be planted all year round pretty much. there is also no need to seek planting stock on a seasonal basis if you need more plants just take some slips from your own vine and stand them in water until they root, or plant them and water them well.

when you harvest a tuber just simply tuck the cut off ends of the vine back in the ground they will continue to grow. n need to let the vine ramble keep it in a tight pattern (we just take our leaders and throw them back over the central growth of the plants keeps it nice and tidy) or prune regular won't effect production and the young leaves can be eaten like spinach just steam until they wilt.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

len..Unfortunately very few of us in the US live in a tropical, or even sub-tropical area like yours. Would be nice to grow sweetpotatoes all year!! But it's just a summer crop for the vast majority of us. I imagine alot of northern gardeners here wouldn;t have a long enough frost-free season to grow these at all. I do plan on growing my own slips this year. Maybe I'll try to steam some leaves this year. Didn;t know they were edible!

This will be my first year growing sweet potatoes. I'm pretty excited. I have visions of pie dancing in my head.

This will be my first year growing sweet potatoes as well. I ordered Beauregard from Johnny's Seed.
I love baked or roasted sweet potatoes. I'm hoping for good luck with these.

Gardenlen: Potatoes are probably one of the easiest things to grow here in Maine. I put them in a trench, hill them twice and that's it. I think climate plays a big part in this. You probably have to deal with all kinds of pests and diseases that get killed off up here due to the freeze. On the other hand sweet potatoes are easy for you and all the girls aren't bundled up in giant coats for 3/4 of the year :)

Jon

I grew sweet potatoes (beauregard) for the first time 2 years ago...I puchased a 9 pack from HD or Lowes, only 7 of these plants ended up growing. and I planted them per the specs on the tag (if memory serves, 2 feet apart? and the rows were also 2 feet apart, or something similiar,

They produced like crazy and eventually the vine took over my entire garden spot. (which was ok, because they grow until like December here before harvest and everything else in the garden was done by then). I started digging them after the first frost or so hit them...and everywhere the runners went and anchored down, I had potatoes too, it was like a treasure hunt...I would dig up the main roots (and I had some on the main plants as big as footballs, I"m not kidding, they were not all this large, but I'd say at least one or two on them were. The rest were all good sized, and of course the further out the runner from the main plant they were alot smaller. I filled up 4 five gallon buckets with potatoes. I had more than I could ever eat, gave a ton away and used the very smallest ones for seed for the next year. (which apparently got planted too late).

The second season (last year) I planted about 8 plants from slips I grew from the small potatoes. And I only had about one 5 gallon bucket full. Again, I contribute this to getting them planted way too late. They missed the HOT summer sun.

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I've grown sweet potatoes where I live and they do very well. Last year we found plants in trays at Walmart. The plants grew to be bigger and had slightly larger yields then potatoes grown from slips. I have alkaline soil and I've grown Georgia Jet and Beaugregard. The purple/red potatoes have a better looking outer skin and store longer because of this. Does anyone know which of the two varieties is purple/red. I'm sure in other soils the orange variety does better, but not in my alkaline clay.

g'day koala,

see someone in zone 8 doing very well with them the original poster is in zone 7 as zones are only an indicator that may not mean much to the plants as they grow by climate conditions, and the original poster could have a good micro-climate somthing not taken into account by many gardeners. they will grow into the temperate zones especailly in the micro-climate of an eastern or southern aspected position. and of course very liberal use of mulch hay to keep the soil warmer longer. we kept tubers viable in the ground in rural where we got solid frosts with ground temp's down to -6c or so.

g'day jon,

we grow our spuds though our winter which is probably like your autumn over there in lots of the country? we do get light frosts, but we also have no bugs through the winter, and with the shorter sunlight hours they need less water. got my first planting in now, as we still need to get good growth happening to carry us through those slower months of june & july.

my suggestion don't count on some numbering or climate identification of growing conditions, learn about aspects and micro-climates and that can only be determined on the spot in live sight, for the US i'd be thinking eastern to southern aspects the better micro-climate as would also being close to the eastern sea board or east of the range, here it is eastern to northern and near the eastern sea board. when we buy a house aspect is a big consderation as we need good sun to grow anything through winter.

with sweeties the very worst you can do is try and fail, it is not life altering stuff.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I harvested my sweet potatoes now, as of early October, before the first frost. Harvest was nice but albeit a bit smaller. Some varieties produced significantly more than others, so it is worth to experiment!

Next year I will start as early as possible and in raised beds. Give them as much sun as possible. Also (unless you live in a subtropical climate) dont let the vine root, because then you end up with many small sweet potatoes. Better to just the ones at the crown develop. But if you live in a subtropical climate and have a frost free season until December, then by all means, encourage that, as your harvest will go through the roof.

If you are crowded for space, The bunch types yield well and don't run all over the place. Just for the record : a sweet potato is a true root not a tuber. Yo need about 4+ frost free months, but otherwise they are not demanding of either soil type or fertility. It does need be loose for 8 -12 inches.

This year's crop has some very yuge potatoes and I mean very large ones. I made a high ridge...will make an even higher next year. I have only two problems with sweetpotatoes....mice and voles and some scurf. I set traps and am going to use black plastic with very small holes to keep things dry underneath to prevent scurf. Scurf is a dark film on the outside.

Trash can taters- I stuck my hand down in one of the plastic trash cans I grew sweet potatoes in this year, and there are a bunch in there. I think I will delay harvest until November.

farmerdill,

Did you grow any sweet potatoes this year? What verities?

I raised O'Henry and Covington...both are good growers with smooth roots.

farmerdill,

How do you rate the Carolina Ruby and the Covington. I understand the Covington are very good. What would you grow if only growing one verity? How do you compare Carolina Ruby & Covington with Beauregard? Some people don't like Beauregard and others do. Are Beauregard the ones sold in grocery stores? I have been thinking about planting Covington but can't decide. The last few years I have been growing my slips from grocery store sweet potato's. The reason for that is the gophers are so bad here some years I am lucky if I get any at all so grocery store sweet potato slips are cheaper than loosing more expensive slips ordered from a farm some where.

Right now Carolina Ruby 1, Covington 2. Both are good yielding and better flavor to me than Beauregard which also is a great performer. Ruby has slimmer roots and more attractive than Covington.

Carolina Ruby (from i plant)Covington
The best flavor on my palate is Porto Rico (either bunch or vine version) Very prone to Scurf tho so I have not grown them for several years. I have grown the Ivy Leaf Carver for the past decade or so. Excellent yields, compact plant but not quite as sweet as the others. A keeper for me tho. I often try a white, rarely a yellow but overly fond of those for eating.

Thank you for the information. If you don't mind could you tell what does scurf looks like on a sweet potato ? I have heard of it but don't know if I have ever saw it or not.

Scurf is a dark color that is skin deep. Scurf may affect part of the potato or it may affect the whole tuber. This condition does tend to affect storage life. The skin can be removed before cooking or perhaps after baking as it isn't appetizing...don't know if there is harm in eating it the darkened skin.

Too much wetness can encourage scurf.

farmerdill, My Covingtons looked very much like your Ruby Reds.

Scurf is a dark discoloration of the outer skin of the sweet potato. It does not appreciably affect the eating quality, but it is ugly. http://www.lsuagcenter.com/~/media/system/8/5/4/2/8542fc180e040e91a36b7fda34da0670/pub3096scurfofsweetpotatolowres.pdf

Thanks' for all the information about scruf.