Home Grown Sweet Potatoes

If you love sweet potatoes like we do, try growing some in your garden and you'll love them even more! They are a superfood, full of vitamins and fiber, and delicious. We slice and bake them like fries, or cube them for use in tagines and other stews.

Sweet potatoes are grown from rooted slips that grow from the parent sweet potato. If you have ever found an old sweet potato in your pantry with some long white roots coming from it, those are slips- or the first stage of slips. They are then placed in water to develop roots before planting. Last year, we bought two types: Carolina Rose (a long vining type) and Puerto Rico (a bush type). I waited too long getting the Carolina Rose in, and many slips died. I think I failed to keep the slips moist enough. The Puerto Ricos were purchased later and went in the ground right away. They all lived. I wouldn't exactly call them "nonvining" as the vines were about 4 or 5 feet long. By the end of the season, the vines took over the paths all around the bed. Oh well- it was worth it! We planted late May and harvested mid October. Here is what we learned so far. We are about to put this year's slips in, so I have sweet potatoes on my mind...

1) Plant on the later side.

We are waiting to plant our Vardaman slips this year due to a frost (!) warning for next week (May 15, in zone 6b). This is a very late frost but sweet potatoes are not at all cold hardy. I considered planting and covering them with sheets, but decided not to risk it and keep them in water inside for an extra week. I have heard the slips should be planted right away, and I don't know how long they can stay healthy in water. But I think the risk of putting sweet potatoes out in the cold is higher than keeping them in for an extra week. Next year, to avoid this problem, I plan to grow my own slips so they will be ready early June. Although growing your own sweet potatoes is certainly cheaper than purchasing them (especially organic ones) , it is a relatively expensive plant to grow. I got a good deal on local slips- $10 for 25. But we plant about 50 slips, so it adds up. This will be an experiment so if anyone has advice on growing slips, I'd love to hear from you.

2) Sweet potatoes are not demanding.

Water deeply for the first two weeks, and they will establish quickly. Don't worry too much if the plants look dead when you plant them. They are hardy, as long as it's warm and you keep the bed moist. After several days, you will see new growth and they will be filling out nicely in a few weeks. After that, they don't need much care and can handle periods of dryness. As an example, we had 5 extra slips last year so I stuck them in my front yard in an unused space. This is always risky because I can't easily get water to this spot and don't check on it much; in short, I neglect it. In any case, the sweet potatoes thrived out there and did as well as the ones that got prime space in the kitchen garden and were looked after daily. Sweet potatoes don't need a lot of soil fertility and do better without too much nitrogen, which can cause lush vine growth and small roots (the part we eat). The neglected plants produced at least as well as the ones that got lots of attention and the resulting harvest held up until we ate them in March. Another benefit of growing sweets: they are beautiful up until you take them out of the ground. The vines are so decorative and healthy looking and were the bright spot in our front yard. You can clip a few vines and root them in your containers (just stick them in the soil and water them) and they will look lovely.

Puerto Ricos, about mid July

3) Voles love sweet potatoes.

I have never seen voles until we moved into this house two years ago. They are cute little rodents that live under ground and eat roots, especially our bamboo and sweet potatoes. When I harvested our sweets last fall, I was shocked to see that a good third of them had vole damage. This year, we are going to try an organic vole repellent made from castor oil, but I don't have high hopes. If you have any ideas for dealing with voles, PLEASE share them.

4) Curing sweet potatoes is necessary for storage.

I have skipped curing in past years and they were fine for up to three months. However, they aren't very sweet until a month or two after harvest. Last year, we grew enough to store. We got about 80 sweet potatoes from 30 plants. If you check the web, you will find complicated curing procedures that are difficult for home growers to replicate (some variation of keeping the roots in 90% humidity and 85 degrees F for 10 days). Not so easy in the fall. Maybe we got lucky, but here is what we did and our sweets were still firm and delicious until we finished the last one in late March.

Wait until right around the first frost to harvest, preferably on a sunny day and when the soil is relatively dry. Cut the vines first. Dig carefully as the roots can be damaged easily with your garden fork or shovel. After digging, we let them bask in the sun for the day. We did not wash them but when we brought them inside, we did gently brush off any clumps of soil. Using a large kitchen knife- any knife will do- we sliced several holes in large black trash bags (so the roots don't get too moist), and put the roots into the bags. We then put the bags into cardboard boxes and folded the tops over to close them. We placed them right next to the furnace for a month. After a month, we opened the bags at the top and kept them in the basement at about 58 degrees.

If anyone has tips for good sweet potatoes, I'd love to hear from you!