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chaman_gw

Growing sweet potato slips

chaman
11 years ago

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Place the sweet potato on top of the soil so that 1/4 inch of the bottom of the potato stays in the soil.Keep the temp. at about 70 to 80 deg. F.Water regularly to keep the soil wet.Slips will appear in about 10 to 15 days.

I am posting the pic. for sharing with you.

Comments (8)

  • tn_gardening
    11 years ago

    cool
    wish i had room to grow them

  • aaaaaaaa
    11 years ago

    Chaman--thanks for posting the picture.

    Do you separate the splits from the sweet potato and plant only the splits in the soil or do you burry entire sweet potato in the soil? What I mean to ask is how do you plant them after you get the splits?

    Thanks in advance.
    Anna

  • neptune25
    11 years ago

    I have a question too. I simply put two sweet-potato halves in water (instead of soil), but am still getting nice slips. Anyway, concerning the slips, once they've grown roots about an inch long, do you plant them on their sides in the soil in your garden, or up and down? Also, what do you do with the sweet potato itself if it's grown a ton of roots? Do you just plant that in your garden too?

  • Macmex
    11 years ago

    Looking good Chaman.
    Neptune24, I wouldn't go, so much by how long are the roots, but rather by how long are the slips themselves. I'd try for at least 5." You don't need to plant the slips on their sides, though I personally do tend to slant them into the ground.

    As to planting the sweet potato itself, I've planted them too. But for me, they don't tend to produce the nice batch of roots that the slips do. They can produce. So, that's really up to you.

    George
    Tahlequah, OK

  • grandad_2003
    11 years ago

    I recall planting sweet potatoes years ago. I soaked the potatoes in about an inch of water, let the slips grow to about 10 to 12 inches long, cut the slips from the sweet potato, stripped off the lower leaves leaving only the very top leaves, and planted in a 8 to 10 inch hole made by using a round stick. It was amazing to me that the naked slip, with no roots at all, would grow in the middle of June in 90 degree plus south Louisiana heat. I don't recall ever losing a single slip. I quit planting sweet potatoes because 1) they wanted to take over the garden, and 2) I had problems with stwee potato borers.

  • the0ry
    11 years ago

    chaman-
    Nice pics, thanks for sharing. I tried a couple different methods to start slips this year, although none like yours. Both my attempts were water and tuber only, and one turned into a stinky fermented mess (the cut tuber) and the other didn't yield any sprouts after a month, so I tossed it. I'll be buying slips again this year, I guess. Next year I will try your method. Did you start your own or store bought taters? If your own, how did you store them over the winter?
    Thanks so much for the inspiration, and congrats on your success!

  • neptune25
    11 years ago

    Thanks for the helpful info, George. I just planted my first slip yesterday. From the time I cut the potato in half and put it in water, it's now been about 8 weeks. I have several more slips that are almost ready as well. Many folks seem to get their slips much quicker, but mine have taken a while. I guess the key for some of us is simply to be patient. :)

  • Macmex
    11 years ago

    True, also, heat is key. If it is at all cool, they can take a LONG time to get going. I suppose variety is also a factor. I had an infestation of fungus gnats, in my planter, this year, and had to start over twice, toughest sweet potato year of my life, so far.

    One suggestion for the future: take it for what it's worth to you. Don't cut the roots you want to use for starting slips. This may give opportunity for disease or ... fungus gnats. Just bury the root at least half way in the soil. It'll work.

    Grandad, they are incredibly hardy, aren't they?! We lived over eight years in the high desert of the Mexican state of Hidalgo. There was very little rainfall where we lived. But we did use flood irrigation. I once pulled a sweet potato vine, while harvesting, and tossed it into an adjacent (unused/dry) plot. Over the course of a couple months the vine dried, turned brown crisp. Then, someone flooded that plot, in order to work it, and... presto! The vine sprouted little sweet potato plants along the leaf nodes!

    George

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