Let me use this photo opportunity to wish all of you a Happy Halloween. I had quite a nice chat with a witch just last night. She didn't put a spell on my sweet potato crop but someone must have. Or maybe I just left them in the ground too long and the result is larger than expected individual tubers. I wonder how they'll taste?
I'm a novice at growing these guys, this being only my second year but they are fun and easy once you get the hang of it. You start early in the spring by cutting a sweet potato in half and putting the cut half under water in a jar. Here let me just show you with a photo.
Once vines begin to grow out of the potato you snip them off at their base and put the cut end of each back in the water. The vine, or slip as it is called, will grow roots and can be transferred to the garden once it has really warmed up. Sweet potato vines will crisscross your garden all summer, putting down roots and growing tubers for you to harvest. If you wait too long you'll get huge sweet potatoes like this one. I think it looks like a chicken ready for baking.
3 comments:
Wow, those are some huge sweet potatoes! The only potatoes I have ever grown are regular white ones, but I think this spring I will give your sprouting method a try. If I plant say, six of them in a garden, how much room do you think I would need? I haven't grown potatoes in tires before, either...Thanks, great blog, btw.
Thanks farmgirl,
Plant them about 12 to 18 inches apart and give them the amount of room you'd give a melon vine- that's how they grow. The past two years I've planted my vines in amongst summer vegetables like tomatoes and peppers that I know I won't be removing until frost. Then I just let the vines run all over the place. They help shade out weeds. I hope that helps.
Nice sweet potatoes!
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