How to Grow Sweet Potatoes from Slips

If you want to plant sweet potatoes in your garden, then try growing your own slips to start the potatoes. In order to grow sweet potatoes, you must plant the slips into the ground to grow the vines. When growing your own sweet potato slips, you need to use a fresh and disease-free sweet potato to keep your crop healthy. The sweet potatoes need to grow in warm air and soil, which means that the potatoes do not need planted until well after the threat of frost passes.

Things You'll Need

• Sweet potato
• Jar
• Water
• Potato slips
• Fertilizer
• Thermometer

Instructions

1. Start the sweet potato slips at least 12 weeks before growing them in the garden. Place a sweet potato in a jar half full of water, or so that you submerge 1/3 of the tuber.

2. Sit the jar in a sunny location at least 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Allow the sprouts to grow 6 inches long, then pull them off the tuber and place them in water until ready to plant.

3. Prepare the garden for the potatoes. Use well-drained soil, and do not over water the ground. Spread low nitrogen fertilizer over the planting area two weeks before planting the potatoes to keep them healthy.

4. Plant the sweet potato slips outdoors. Make sure the soil temperature stays at 60 to 85 degrees, and the temperature stays at 65 to 95 degrees outside. Find a location that does not receive direct sunlight. Measure the surface of the ground by place the thermometer flat on the ground and record the temperature after a minute passes. Measure the air temperature by holding the thermometer at shoulder height for one minute.

5. Space the potato slips in rows that are 12 to 18 inches apart. Plant the slips in a 3 foot dug bed, and keep the rows at least 3 to 4 inches apart. Water the potatoes in every day for the first week, but do not over water the soil. Once the vines begin growing, they only need watered every 3 to 4 days to keep the soil moist but not soaked.

6. Harvest the sweet potatoes when the leaves and vines turn yellow. The leaves will begin to wither. Dig the potatoes up at about 10 to 15 inches from the center of the vine, and continue to dig inwards. You will not need to harvest the potatoes until after 150 days.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep your garden free of weeds to prevent pests and diseases from ruining the sweet potatoes.

• Immediately remove any potatoes that have become infected with a disease to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the crop.