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Propagating your own sweet potatoes.

• Message 1. 

  Posted by calculad (U3607616) on Wednesday, 12th January 2011

  I posted this in a reply to previous post, but I thought it might have a wider interest.
  
  OK here goes.
  I used to do the trick of suspending tubers in water, but to be honest I found plonking them in a pot of soil or sand or compost works just as well. I use pretty much the same strategy to propagate ginger and lemon grass. I have tried dark, light conditions, covered, uncovered. They all grew.
  Even the tubers that rotted because I kept them too wet grew good shoots.
  
  I save a few tubers over the winter (indoors)
  Pot them up half buried like a boat in moist soil, compost or sand.
  A bit of warmth speeds things up.
  2-3 weeks shoots appear at soil level or just below. (the plant suppliers call them slips)
  6-7 weeks some are big enough to cut (they also form roots around the join).
  Cut off the shoot with a sliver of the parent tuber and a few roots and then re-pot.
  Plant in final position warm enough outside and when roots appear at bottom.
  
  Last two summers (on Isle of Wight) have yielded about half the weight that a normal potato yields per plant outside. Also grew in greenhouse with slightly better results.
  They don’t grow as big as supermarket mutants, but I eat mine in their skins so no waste.
  Some get a bit of slug damage, but you can save those for next year.
  They can go pretty deep if the conditions allow it so dig them up carefully.
  Mine went down about 2 feet but I have heard tales of them going a lot deeper (a la Bob Flowerdew on GQT).
  
  
  These plants are really tough (apart from the cold) and want to grow, so I reckon there are many variations that would work. I think they would benefit from rich soil..
  E.G. I left some tuners in pots and they did all the above but I didn’t cut any shoots/slips off. I just left them. They completely filled the pot with long thin sweet potatoes and were only limited by the size of the pot.
  
  All of these came from 6 slips that I bought for £1 each, and I would recommend anyone to do this. I believe the original types were T65 and Beauregard.
  Good luck although you won’t need it. Please post results good or bad.
  
  My only failures were bought tubers from a supermarket which I did scrub. They all failed to shoot.
  Any questions love to help, but I’d better stop now.
  K
  
  

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