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How to grow sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes are relatively easy to grow. They can be grown indoor in a container. They are started from slips or a cut sweet potatoes.. You can either order sweet potatoes slips from Internet or grow your own slips from store bought sweet potatoes. What follows is a procedure for planting sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes viines.

Part I: Sprouting and growing sweet potato vines

Follow the following steps:

1) Buy a sweet potato from the supermarket. Make sure the sweet potato you bought is not a cooked one.

2) Use toothpicks to hold the sweet potato in place. Then, immerse the sweet potato into a jar of water.

4) In about one month's time, if the ambient temperature is not way too off, the sprouts will emerge. The sprouts are called slips. Each sweet potato can produce up to 50 slip sprouts! The slips will eventually go to soil, from which they eventually grow new sweet potatoes.

Sweet potato vines can be eatened as ordinary vegetables. In case you just want to eat the vines, you don't need to grow new sweet potatoes unless you want to propagate your sweet potatoes. The vines are also very tasty.

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Part II; Planting sweet potatoes slips to grow new sweet potatoes

Once your sweet potatoes have sprouted, the vines can be eaten as ordinary vegetables. At this stage, you are also ready to plant the slips to grow new sweet potatoes. To do this, follow the following steps:

1) Carefully cut the slips off the mother potatoes. Each of the slips should be about 6 inches long. If any of the slips is too long, just cut it into two halves and plant both.

2) Submerge the slips into a shallow jar of water.

3) In about one week, new roots will be formed. When the roots are about one inch long, the slips should be ready for planting in soil.

4) Finally, plant the slips in soil. Dig holes on the ground first. Then, insert a slip onto each hole. Finally, fill the hole with sand or sandy soil.

Sweet potatoes are pretty drought resistant. They do not need too much watering. According to my experience, watering once a week is more than enough.

Part III; Harvesting sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes should be ready to harvest in about 3 to 4 months, depending on the ambient conditions. They prefer temperatures above 50F at night and below 90F during the day. Any temperature outside this range will hinder their growth.