How to Grow Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potato plants usually grow in areas that have temperatures of approximately 75ºF. Growing sweet potatoes is an enjoyable and profitable hobby. To grow your own sweet potatoes, factors like weather and soil conditions should be considered. Follow this article’s guide to cultivate these root crops successfully.

You will need

•   Sweet potato slips or vine cuttings

•   Mature Compost

•   Mulch

•   General gardening tools

•   Fertiliser low in nitrogen

Instructions

Growing slips

1. To grow slips, bury the root cap in moist soil.
2. To ensure that they can grow healthy sweet potatoes, cut slips that are at least six inches long.
3. The vine cuttings should be carefully transplanted in a garden where the root crops will be cultivated.

Cultivating sweet potatoes

1. Ensure that the garden where the slips will be transplanted has a temperature of not less than 70ºF. It is also important to grow crops in moist soil.
2. Slips should be planted 3 inches away from each other.
3. To improve the survival of young slips, put black mulch around the vine cuttings.
4. Water the plants daily and apply fertiliser if needed.

Harvesting the crops

1. Sweet potatoes can be harvested 4 to 5 months after cultivation. After harvesting these crops, it is important to leave them on the ground for at least two hours.
2. Put the crops in a clean container and store them in a warm area for at least 10 days.
3. Transfer sweet potatoes to cool storage and wait 7 days before cooking them.

Tips and warnings

• Gardeners can enhance the growth of slips by placing the mother potato into a jar with warm water before planting it in potted soil. When it comes to the cultivation of the plants, it is important to remove weeds that usually grow with sweet potatoes.
• Gardeners must get rid of mice since they usually eat the roots of these plants.
• Sweet potato plants need sufficient supply of sunshine and they need to be harvested before frost.

• Raising beds improves the drainage and gives the tubers a nice deep soil to develop in. Otherwise you may end up with small, bent and forked sweet potatoes.
• The soil must have a good supply of nutrients, from digging in mature compost. Do not use fresh manures or any fertilisers high in nitrogen. You will only end up with leaves and no tubers.

• Mulch thickly between plants and even between the beds initially to keep weeds down. Once the sweet potatoes grow they will choke all weeds down themselves.