Sweet Potato - taking slips?

[Aunt Elner]

Could someone please post the procedure for taking slips from sweet potatoes? And, how long can you hold the slips before planting?

Thank-you,

Aunt E

[Forerunner]

I take a few of my biggest, healthiest sweet potatoes from last year's crop, and stick a welding rod through each of them, crossways, about three quarters up from the bottom, and place then in a two gallon bucket of water, each.
The welding rod serves to suspend them from sinking, while still being able to drink their fill of water.

After a few days, little green sprouts will stick their little heads out of the potato for a look around. For me, this is one of the most exciting times of the planting season.

Obviously, placing these mother potatoes in a warm, sunny location is best.
After a few short weeks, the sprouts will be running over, dangling inches and maybe feet over the sides of your buckets. They are actually best for harvesting when they are six to eight inches long, although they can be left to grow several feet long and cut into sections. Pulling them gently from the mother potato when 6 to 8 inches works more dependably.
I place the slips, in bundles of a dozen or so, in quart jars half full of water.
The slips will grow happily, for several weeks, with no nourishment other than the water. They will send out little white roots at the bottom, and can be put in pots for further growth or planted directly in the garden when warm enough. I plant mine in the evening, preferably in anticipation of a cloudy or rainy next day. Direct sunlight seems to be a little hard on them at first. Water them WELL. Of course, mine are set in LOTS of compost, and I hill them well so that they are well drained and in loose soil to grow.
I plant them about a foot apart, maybe 16 inches, in rows two feet apart.
I mulch them with wood chips, straw or sawdust. Last year, I broke my record again, growing sweet potatoes the size of soccer balls, tender and sweet all the way through. I do beets and onions in similar fashion btw, with similar results.

[Mid Tn Mama]

Forerunner has given you good information. But I'm lazier then him, so I'll tell you what I do. I put a sw pot. in a jar half filled with water on the windowsill, I cut them off when they get about 8 in. long and put them in a vase in my windowsill with water in it. Then when roots have formed, out they go to the garden.


Sometimes I'm impatient and just put the cuttings in the ground.

You do have to wait until the soil warms up and after danger of frost.

[Jim56]

Forerunner, how early do you start these. Thanks, Jim

[Forerunner]

I'm in zone 5, mid to upper Illinois, and I just started them.
I could have waited up to another month, but, well, you know.....

I'll have a bunch of really healthy starts come early to mid May.
I'd rather wait an extra week or two for the soil temp to get right than have the
right soil temp wait a week or two for me.

[Toads tool]

As to Forerunners post, that's the way my grandma showed me.

I have also taken runners that have gotten too long and cut them into three leaf sections, about a foot, leaving the top two leaves. Stick these in a jar in a southern window and they will usually shoot roots.
If you have trouble rooting, add a piece of green willow stick that's been mashed or chewed to break it up a bit, to the water overnight.

Willow water is the only natural rooting helper I've ever needed and that's rarely.

Well off to find a sweet tater.

[Aunt Elner]

Thank you for all the answers. I have a sweet potato in the vegetable drawer that is starting to sprout, but since I can't plant slips out until mid to late May, I was afraid it might be too early to start them.

Off to find some wooden skewers and a big jar...

[oberhaslikid]

I use toothpick and place my potato in a jar of water.Like you start an avacodo.

[Ed in S. AL]

Hmmm... Maybe I should take orders, and ship all of you some when they hit the feed store here. They come in by the crates here. I think they are 25 or 50 slips to each little bundle they sell. I know they sure grow a ton of sweet potatos. They are from Bonnie Plants and are rooted very nicely.

[lonelyfarmgirl]

everything Ive been told said do not plant sweets in compost. Im of the understanding that hard poor soil is best, so I have always planted my sweet potatoes in virgin ground as a break-up crop, and they always do fabulous.
am I wrong?

[Forerunner]

I would hate to tell anybody, flat out, that they were wrong.

My experience, however, is that many sources claim that such and such, or so and so, does well in poor, hard-baked soil. Grapes are a fine example.

Sweet potatoes were introduced to agriculture on a large scale by George Washington Carver, in the eighteen hundreds, along with peanuts.
Both crops flourished in the nutrient poor, mined out and hard soils that had supported cotton for far too long...

Yes, there are crops that can sweep up the aftermath of neglected and abused soils, but I've yet to find any plant that doesn't respond positively to the benefits of compost. That said, there are few plants that appreciate growing in pure compost. Tomatoes are one. Most plants prefer a mix of compost and native soils as a base.
When I set out my sweets, I hill them up, then put about a gallon of compost, mixed well with the surrounding soil, in each hole.

I grow really big sweet potatoes.

[lonelyfarmgirl]

maybe I will try that. I was afraid if I did add lots of compost, like I do with tomatoes and peppers, that I would end up getting all leaves and not tubers.
I know something I read said not to plant potatoes in with lots of compost either.
your opinion on that?

[Forerunner]

Well, my entire garden is a foot of compost, by now, and getting thicker.....
We planted 150 pounds of seed potatoes last spring, and harvested nearly 3000 pounds last late August.

Potatoes don't like lime or wood ash, and I don't heavily compost my potato beds in the spring like I do, say, my 'maters, peppers and melons. But they do grow real well in rich soil. I plant them in hills, 20-24 inches apart, plants 14 inches apart, weed them once and hill them a bit more, then mulch the dickens out of them with straw or wood chips. There are very few weeds that venture to show themselves after that. Some years I disc the mulch in after harvest, some years I leave it and plant another crop in the same hills and utilize the mulch for a second season.
The excessive leafy growth you mentioned comes from an imbalance favoring nitrogen. If compost is allowed to age until there is zero ammonia or manure odor, that should not be a problem, and you should be able to use all the compost you want to carry a day at a time......

[lonelyfarmgirl]

good to hear of your experience. I, unfortunately, am starting over with fresh grass. we just moved here over the summer. due to the drought and a broke down van, I wasnt able to do anything with it, so its still grass. Im considering just digging individual planting holes in the sod as I need them and mulching around the plant to kill the remaining grass. guess addind compost to the tater holes wouldn't hurt.
thanks