Sweet Potato Slips from the Greenhouse

So I grew sweet potatoes in the garden again this year. There was no fanfare to the whole event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to my EasiOyYa (Easy Olla) I am able to grow out sweet potato starts from May through the end of the summer. It is rather easy. All I need to do is plant my best sweet potatoes next to the EasiOyYas, let them keep everything moist and wait. Once the plants emerge, I let them get to be about 1 foot or so in diameter, then I twist them free of their mother tuber and bring them where I want to plant them. Then I plant the entire slip (including the roots) up to the first set of leaves. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Generally speaking, sweet potatoes transpire very little, so there is minimal water lost in the whole process. This being said, it may be wise if you live some place where the average high is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, to provide afternoon shade for the first week – while the slip is establishing itself. This will ensure that it is able to get a good foothold before sprawling across the yard in its quest to conquer the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little dish with cooked Purple Sweet Potato Pie filling.

 

 

As I produce slips from the greenhouse during the hottest part of the summer, I almost always have plenty to spare. If you are ever in town and in need of some Dingess Sweet Potato slips, simply drop by Cucumber Shop while I am around and I may just have some sweet potato slips waiting just for you.

Why you should be careful when growing Sweet Potatoes in Heavy Clay

So the title pretty much gives away the whole story of my feelings about growing sweet potatoes in heavy clay. It is miserable. It is miserable if the clay is moist and muddy and it is miserable if the clay is dry and as hard as a brick. It is miserable not knowing what you are trying to cut through to find the sweet potatoes and it is miserable accidentally hitting the soaker hose when you are just trying to get out a tuber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with trying to grow sweet potatoes in heavy clay is that they stick. The tubers stick to the mud or the hard clumps of dirt and can be nearly impossible to distinguish or separate from the material they are growing in. While there are some people who speak out against amending clay with sand, I am very much a proponent of the idea. One very nice thing about amending clay with sand is that sand does not biodegrade the same way that organic material will – so despite its ability to loosen the soil, sand remains around for a while. The same can likely be said about clay being added to sand - except clay definitely has a higher available nutrient content as well as a literal “sticking power”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In the end, I did manage a crop of tubers from the work garden over the pandemic - but they set deeper in the ground along the cracks and seams, so that the increased effort required to extract them damaged the structure of the soil I was moving to find them.

Fertile Garden Sweet Potatoes

After years of only growing cucumbers and melons in the fertile garden, I asked my friend if I could grow sweet potatoes in his garden. The reason why I chose sweet potatoes was because between the political climate, the pandemic and people panic-purchasing – sweet potatoes seemed like a very reliable food supply. Despite having plenty of minerals in the soil, the contents of the fertile garden are primarily clay soil. Fortunately, sweet potatoes not only love warm climates like mine, but also tolerate clay soils very well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those who may not have grown sweet potatoes in the garden, there are some really good reasons why a gardener may want to consider growing them. The primary reason is to provide a living mulch. Sweet potatoes are very good at being a groundcover over the first 3-6 inches of vertical garden space. While big-box stores will sell sweet potatoes as a filler for flower decorations, in the garden, the vines create a lower layer that makes use of the area around and below taller-growing summer plants, minimizes evaporation and quickly smothers the territory of developing weeds. Though it may seem counterintuitive that a plant which requires water would actually decrease water usage, sweet potatoes can be a net water-saver when grown over bare soil because of their minimal loss of water through transpiration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet potatoes are also very good with producing a lot of food while utilizing minimal resources. Though sweet potatoes do require water, soil and lots of sun, they are not fussy about how they grow. And they produce plenty of food for the amount of effort expended. One interesting thing about sweet potatoes is that the tubers do tend to set in areas where there is something solid, so if there is a large rock or paver in the garden – or even a border between the garden and other landscape – the gardener may be finding sweet potatoes around these areas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest drawback to sweet potatoes is the harvest. Unless a gardener has very loose soil and the sweet potatoes are top-setting, quite a bit of soil may need to be moved around to find the whole crop. When I refer to top setting, this means that the tuber sets near the base of the plant, instead of further away and deeper into the ground. One of the most frustrating things to do is to try to dig deep-setting sweet potatoes in wet clay soil. Not is this a painstaking process, but it also really damages the structure and aerobic capacity of the soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, by the time we got to removing the sweet potatoes from the garden, wet clay is what we had to deal with. But fortunately, Dingess Purple is relatively good at making top-setting tubers, so we didn’t have to look too far to find most of the crop. I felt very blessed to have family who helped me with both harvesting and cleaning the potatoes so we would have plenty of potatoes to make our traditional purple sweet potato pie.