Planting Sweet Potato Slips
Hi There, I’m from Adelaide, South Australia. How do I plant purple sweet potato? I bought a purple sweet potato and its almost a foot long. How do I make it start having little growths (like with normal potato) so I can plant them?
I’m trying to have a little productive garden for my 9 year old girl to enjoy and look after herself.
Hope to hear from someone out there.
Store-bought sweet potatoes and regular potatoes can be used to start new plants, but you have no guarantee that they are certified, disease-free slips and they are a cultivar that is adapted to your growing conditions. The other consideration is that many commercially distributed potatoes are treated with a chemical to keep them from sprouting while in stores.
If you want to experiment and try to “start” some slips from your potato there are a couple of different methods. Bury the sweet potato halfway into moist potting soil, keep the soil evenly moist and in a warm, 75 to 80 degree F location, or you can suspend the potato using toothpicks, in a jar of water until it forms slips.
Next, once the slip is about six inches long you want to cut it from the mother potato so you can transplant into the garden. The soil needs to be at least 70 degrees F before doing this. Before transplanting you might want to dust the slips with a fungicide or allow them to cure for several days before planting. Lay the slips into the hole so that about a half inch is buried under the soil. The vines will cover the ground so be sure to give them 12 to 18 inches of space between plants. Sweet potatoes are related to morning glories, if that helps you to visualize how much space they might need. Adding some dark mulch around them will help them retain moisture and absorb heat from the sun. Don’t fertilize them as you’ll only develop more leaves, but make sure your soil is rich in organic matter before planting. Water regularly until about 3-4 weeks before harvest. They can tolerate drought but lack of water can cause splitting. Sweet potatoes don’t like to compete with weeds so keep the area clear until the top growth takes off.