Potted sweet potatoes prefer well-draining, sandy soil to which you should add compost. Fill the jar or glass with enough water to cover the bottom half of the tuber. Learn more... Sweet potatoes make for a nutritious and filling side dish to most meals. In the garden, mix some well-aged compost into each planting hole and then plant slips 12-18" apart, burying the stem with soil right up to the first pair of leaves. Make sure your container receives at least six to eight hours of sun a day. Depending on the size of the container, you may have to pot again or prune the roots if the plant becomes root-bound within the pot. Six weeks or longer before planting outdoors, place them in a box of moist sand, chopped leaves, or sawdust and keep at 75–80°F. But make sure discard any slip that is wilting or that hasn't produced any roots; these won't be viable. If the tuber is too hard, you can drive a small hole with a thin nail, then stick the toothpick into it. When growing a potted sweet potato plant, the first thing to consider is the choice of a suitable container. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Moody recommends that you use a container with a minimum of 2 cubic feet of volume (and even a little more) to allow for any root crop. If you really can’t stand to see another ad again, then please consider supporting our work with a contribution to wikiHow. Be sure the pot has four or more holes for drainage. In my tight confines, the odds seemed against me, so I acquiesced until a tuber bought at the local farmers’ market sprouted on top of my fridge and forced my hand. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. See more ideas about Growing sweet potatoes, Container potatoes, Potatoes. Here are the necessary steps to grow sweet potatoes (Botanical Name: Ipomoea batatas) in containers: Step One: Select a variety of sweet potato that is ideal for growing in containers. To double check that the sweet potato is suitable to use, ask the farmer or booth worker if they’ve sprayed the potatoes with BudNip or other sprout inhibitor. I make them into fries, curries, vindaloo, and sometimes I just bake them in the microwave for a quick lunch. Last Updated: March 29, 2019 wikiHow's. To keep the temperature regular, you may need to place the jar in a sunny window and replace cooler water with warm water 2 times every day. Depending on the variety, though, it will usually take 100 to 140 days for them to fully mature. Be careful not to cut or knick the stem of the slip while you’re trimming the leaves, as this can cause the potato to sprout from an undesirable spot on the slip. Or, if you will plant the edible sweet potatoes in the ground, then the slips can be started in seedling pots, also. The temperature must stay above {[convert|50|F|C}} if you're leaving the bucket outside. Growing potatoes in containers can make gardening accessible for the small space gardener. It also helps to harden off the new plants by acclimating them gradually to the outdoors before putting them into their permanent locations. Make a hole in the center of the soil, deep enough to cover the roots of the slip. If you want to save money, instead of buying new tubs, consider repurposing old containers. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. Sweet potatoes are heat loving plants. This is natural. Plant the Slips in Containers . If you don't want to use your hand, you can also use a small garden spade to dig the holes. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 20,368 times. apart. It's hard not to love sweet potatoes, and growing them in your backyard garden is an excellent option if you love them. Growing Sweet Potatoes in Containers:The sweet potatoes not related to potatoes family. Water your newly planted potatoes well. Sweet potatoes like warm weather, so make sure all danger of frost has passed before you put your new plants outside. Growing sweet potatoes in containers is surprisingly more straightforward than you might imagine. Sweet potatoes don’t grow from an “eye” like a white potato. Sunlight and water are difficult to spread evenly between all 6 of the slips. Instead you need to start a plant from the potato itself. Locate the middle of each tuber piece and insert three or more toothpicks into it; they should go about 1/2 to 1 inch into the tuber. The potato already fills the container it was transplanted into in May, when it was placed in the Greenhouse. Your plant may grow very quickly. Pot cuttings: Plants are best grown from mail order cuttings or taken from plants overwintered in a frost free... Grow. Use a sharp knife to cut the tubers into pieces just slightly smaller than the opening on the jar or glass. Check that the slips are leafy and over 3 inches (7.6 cm) tall. Make sure that there are no air pockets near the roots. (A 10-foot row will produce 8 to 10 pounds of potatoes.) Place each section in a jar or glass of water with half of the potato below the water and half above. Patate Douce En France. To start slips, 6-8 weeks before you’re ready to plant outside, submerge one-third to one-half of a sweet potato in a jar of water on your kitchen windowsill. There may already be a rudimentary root structure attached to the slip. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. To start sweet potato slips, about two months before you’re ready to plant outside, cut a sweet potato in half and place it in a jar of water on your kitchen windowsill so about half the potato is submerged and half is sticking out of the water. And unlike regular potatoes, their meandering, snaking vine grows like a giant’s intestines. Chilling injury also results to roots when soil temperatures drop to 50°F or lower, and this can result in internal decay in storage. It takes 100 to 140 days for sweet potatoes to grow harvestable tubers, depending on the variety. Sweet potatoes belong to the Ipomoea plant family, while regular potatoes are a kind of Solanum. You can simply grow the potato in a container of water or grow the plant in a pot. New roots will begin growing from the bottom of the slip within a few days. Select a variety of sweet potato that is best suited for growing in containers. If you don't have a drill, you can use a sharp knife to cut holes into the bottom of the bucket, but be very careful not to cut yourself. To start your slips, you need several healthy, clean sweet potatoes. Use toothpicks to hold the potato in place (Image 1). Plant your yam slips 12 inches (30.5 cm.) Here are the necessary steps to grow sweet potatoes in containers: Step One: Select a variety of sweet potato that is ideal for growing in containers. Now we are growing it on into a second container and at the same time enjoying our fi… References. [1] Sweet potatoes also like loose, well-drained soil. Planting sweet potatoes in containers. If you are growing edible tubers as vegetables, you'll need a large container or bucket to allow them adequate room to grow. The root comes with smooth skin color ranges between yellow, red, brown, purple, and beige. Each sweet potato can produce up to 50 slip sprouts. Take each sprout and very carefully separate it from the tuber by gently twisting it. Bear in mind, though, that sweet potatoes grow from “slips,” tiny shoots that sprout up out of the tubers and must be transplanted. 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