Never Too Many Sweet Potatoes

Never Too Many Sweet Potatoes

I plant 17 or 18 sweet potatoes plants every year.  For the past quite a few years I’ve started my sweet potatoes using sprouts from 2-year-old roots purposely allowed to sprout in the basement. This year, I had a request from our son Geoff, who is in New Haven, Connecticut, for some starts for a community garden he works with, and I also started a few for a friend who lives close by. Under Plastic Normally, I start one box of 25, but this year, we’re going...

Stop Starting Sweet Potatoes!

I used to start my sweet potatoes like this, in a cup or jar of water. Now I don’t start them at all.  I just let some old potatoes sprout on their own and plant the sprouts. I haven’t started sweet potatoes either in water or soil for quite a few years. After I realized that old sweet potatoes almost always put out viable sprouts on their own after about a year and a half, a discovery of leaving some in storage far too long, I just keep a few potatoes around to...

Using Sweet Potato Sprouts for Starts

Sweet potatoes store well, but they don’t keep forever.  Above are the last of our 2012 harvest.  These were dug up 15 months ago.  They will still be edible, but we need to use them up as soon as possible. They’ve begun to sprout and that’s a good thing. For the last two years I’ve grown my sweet potatoes using sprouts like this, rather than starting new sprouts on a whole potato.  This method is much easier.  Vine cuttings would work nearly as well. The sprouts...

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