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| Putting Sweet potatoes out for transplants |
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| Placing the sweet potatoes in the Garden |
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| Purple Sweet Potatoes for Slips |
So – what makes
starting sweet potato slips in the garden tricky? Disease, nematodes, and
various other factors have led to farmers to grow out small plants (or slips)
from sweet potatoes rather than planting the tubers themselves. Transplanting
sweet potato slips can be a rather simple process in a very moderate climate
(where sweet potatoes do not grow well). In contrast, in hot southern climates (where
sweet potatoes grow very well) transplanting can be much more difficult. This
is because by the time the slips are ready to plant in May the 100ᵒ Fahrenheit (38ᵒ Celsius) daytime heat
cooks the roots of the sweet potatoes down through the first 6 inches of soil.
This means that either the roots must be very long or the plants must be given
additional care until they establish themselves.
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| All Purple Sweet Potato Slips |
My experience this
last month with growing and transplanting sweet potato vines has taught me that
transplanting slips requires timing, hardening off, and recovery time. By
timing I mean that I have found that it helps to transplant the slips in the
evening. By doing this, it gives the roots a little more time to enjoy cool
soil before the sun and heat begin to stress the plant. In very hot climates
sweet potato slips need to be hardened off before they are exposed to the full
sun. Until the plants stop wilting, temporary shading really helps to give the
roots time to grow and helps to “harden off” the plant. Even with planting at
night and shading, it may still take several weeks until sweet potato slips are
ready for the intense heat of the Arizona sun.
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| Sweet Potato Slips recovering |
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| More recovering Sweet Potato Slips |
One other
nonconventional means of transplanting sweet potatoes is the growing of sweet
potato slips from tubers in the garden, then removing the tubers from the
garden. This is the opposite idea of transplanting slips. With this method I
mark (with a stick or some other marker) where I want to plant a very healthy
disease-free sweet potato. Then, I put the sweet potato in the ground and cover
it with garden soil. I then water it, just as she would any other plant in the
garden. Next, I wait until the sweet potato grows out and the plant becomes
established. Once the plant is about 18” long, then you carefully poke around
for the potato and (with a fingernail or another sharp object) I remove any
vines from the potato. Then I pull out the original sweet potato and fill in
the hole with soil. With this method, you have to be very careful to keep from
disturbing the roots of the growing slips. By doing this, you can keep from
losing the 2-3 weeks of shock and recovery required when transplanting the
sweet potato slips.
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| Several weeks later - the vines have recovered |
This “starting slips
in the garden” method is fraught with all kinds of potential disease issues.
However, if you have never had disease problems with sweet potatoes and are
using very healthy disease-free tubers, then you might be willing to take the
chance of keeping sweet potatoes in your soil just long enough to allow the
slips to establish themselves.
Fascinating Jay. I usually planted slips and by the time the first frost came I had a few good size potatoes. Our growing season is just not long enough I think. So I gave up the space to blue potatoes my favorite.
ReplyDeletei would like to offer a alternative that i call the power plant method. in canada we need to speed things up so this is how it works sprout a healthy sweet potato a bowl of water (important-don't puncture the skin) once there are a few very long slips it can be put out in the garden and covered with something to keep the sun off and the slips still attached are buried at a appropriate node. wait 5 weeks until plants have thoroughly rooted then cut the slips(now large plants) from the potato in the bowl. this gives the slips a unlimited amount of resources when establishing there own roots by cutting the vines you ensure that when they enter the bulking phase none of the starches get stored in the original root. this can cut maturation by at least 3 weeks
ReplyDeleteDear Billy,
DeleteThank you so much for your response! I am glad that you found a method that works so well for you.
Obviously, you have a different climate than what we would experience in Southern Arizona. In warmer Arizona climates large milk jug containers filled with water and put around the planted sweet potato provide plenty of heat to get the plants started outside.
There is another post where I describe the method of starting slips from cups, but like you say it can take 5 weeks or so, whereas those who live in warmer climates can really see the benefits of starting sweet potatoes in the ground in about 2 weeks, as long as the daytime temperature has risen to at least 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
Just as you mentioned, any method used should include removing the "mother" potato from the slip as soon as the new plant is able to support itself.