Spring is the best time to grow sweet potatoes either by growing them starting from slips or from scratch. But if you want to do it the easy way, growing sweet potatoes from slips is the best way to go. Sweet potatoes are one of the best tasting potatoes that you can enjoy mashed, boiled, fried, or even added to a savory dish that you and your family can enjoy.
The nice thing about sweet potatoes is that they grow easily, and requires minimal care. You can also expect a large batch of harvest, which is great to share with family and friends.
To grow sweet potatoes, here are the steps that you should do:
Step 1: Choose Your Sweet Potato
We have already mentioned that growing sweet potatoes can start from slips. Slips are the small outgrowths that can be found in the plant. You can use the slips to make new sweet potatoes. Slips can be purchased from online retailers or from garden supply stores. But if you have the time and experience, you can also grow your own slips.
Step 2: Cut Your Sweet Potatoes
If you want to do it from scratch, cut two sweet potatoes in halves and wash them. Make sure that these potatoes are untreated, fresh, and healthy, in order to yield the same for your harvest.
Step 3: Place Your Sweet Potatoes In The Jar
Get a clean jar with an opening that will fit your potato. Fill it with water. Skew the potato with sticks and allow it to hung from the opening, living half of the potato submerged in water, while the other half is exposed in air.
Step 4: Sweet Potato Slips
After a few days or weeks, you will notice the slips growing from the potato already. Snip the slips and plant it to make new sweet potatoes.
Step 5: Grow The Roots Of Your Sweet Potato Slips
To prepare your slips for planting, you must first grow the roots. You can do this by submerging the slips inside a jar full of water.
Step 6: Plant Your Sweet Potato Slips
Now that your slips have roots, it is now ready for planting. Choose your garden bed. The garden bed should be in a place where there is direct sunlight always. This is because sweet potatoes love the warm weather. Sweet potatoes grow under the ground so you do not have to do anything, aside from watering it, after planting the slips. Just make sure to at least plant the slips 6 inches deep, where the half part of the plant is submerged in soil. Also, since sweet potatoes grow underground, you might want to make sure that the soil is a bit loose, to allow easy tilting under.
These are the different ways that you have to do, if you want to grow sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are easy to manage, easy to plant, and yields a good amount of harvest that will surely delight you.
