Growing sweet potatoes is quite different from growing Irish potatoes. Sweet potatoes grow from vines, from “slips” that are transplanted into the garden, not from cut potatoes which are buried in the soil like white potatoes are. Buying sweet potato slips is very expensive, though, with a cost of $20.00 or more for 12 slips. You can easily grow your own sweet potato slips from one potato which you either kept from last year’s harvest, or from one purchased from the local grocery store. If possible, purchase an organic sweet potato to ensure it will not have been treated with sprout inhibitors. Each sweet potato cut in half and placed on damp soil, as I did in this video, will produce about a dozen slips.
Sweet potato plants are very sensitive to frost, and cannot safely be planted outdoors until about one week after the last spring frost. For my area, that is the third week of May. In order to get the slips well grown before transplanting, I need to start the process of getting the sweet potato into soil by early April.
In this video I will show the easiest, fool-proof way to grow your own sweet potato slips for very little cost. A store bought sweet potato will cost less than $1.00, and can easily produce a dozen slips. I need eight slips for planting two mineral lick tubs this spring, so I’ll put one potato cut in half in potting soil to start the slips. Follow the video for the progress on growing these slips.