Can a sweet potato from the store grow well in a garden? Gardener Scott shows the results of planting a supermarket sweet potato in his garden. (Video #408)
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41 Comments
This video came at the perfect time! I bought an organic Hanna Yam at the healthfood store a couple of weeks ago and it's sending up slips sitting on my counter. I was wondering how I might propagate that beauty now that my extra-high raised bed kits have arrived and will be getting filled soon. I'm a patient person and don't mind coddling some baby plants as they grow their roots through the winter. I'm in Zone 7A so the soil warms pretty early here.
@2:20 I thought a giant skunk attacked for a second. It was a friend, though.
I grew a grocery store sweet potato plant one year. The leaves were so pretty. I had it in a planter. However, I found out deer's love sweet potato leaves. They ate it all up one night.
Howdy Gardener Scott! You grew some pretty sweet potatoes! 👍
How does your fur baby like them? 🐕Pups seem to go crazy for sweet potatoes.😀
Don't forget to loosen that soil a bit next year. I also add potash…they seem to like it.
I always grow mine from a potato from the supermarket…one variety I have grown for 3 years now.
We leave ours in the ground a little over 90 days I put 25 ohenry slips in a 14” deep bed that is 20’ long x 2’ wide sprinkle in 2 lbs of pot ash and work it in and use sub surface irrigation my bed is primarily wood chip compost with some of our clay soil mixed in we harvested a little over a 100 lbs of potatoes, some of them were over 8 lbs each. The next time I go to the root cellar I will take some pictures for you we primarily make fries with the ohenrys they are better than Mickey Ds fries.
Scott, wondering if you can give a bit more specifics on timing. I know each area is different, but, perhaps a few answers? 65 deg. F for soil… about how long before that date, did you start the potato into the soil under your lights/heat mat? Then, how big were the slips once you cut them and then rooted them? Basically trying to get a sense of when I start over winter. I am in New England in about the same temps as you, but more humidity in summer.
My regular supermarket sweet potato wouldn't grow slips last year, but the organic one I bought did. I used the water toothpick method and started them side by side. The non-organic one just rotted. Also, sweet potatoes grow down. You may find more closer to the bottom. I grew mine in a 10 gallon grow bag and most of the potatoes were at the very bottom of the bag. Also, sweet potatoes are heavy feeders.
I’ve actually heard from some that the smaller ones are sometimes preferred when cooking for a few people at a time. Looks like a great harvest, I think I’m going to have to try it next year. Mala looked like she wanted in on the action😄. I really appreciate the beginning to end format, it’s very helpful. Regarding the curing process, was that done indoors? Thank you for the helpful information!
My mother grew sweet potatoes in her garden behind her house and they were as big as the ones in the store. I grew some 2 years ago and they were small like yours.
Sweet potatoes are like a perfect food. The tubers are delicious and prolific and the leaves are also delicious and prolific. I have seen people growing them under plastic, probably to maintain heat and moisture. You can get slips just putting the original sweet potato in a bit of soil. As the slips grow up, pop them out with some roots and relocate them.
I just microwave my sweet potatoes plain or put them right on the grill plain or wrap them in foil or parchment and grill or roast them plain. They are delicious! My mother's method was to cut them and cook them with the rice. That was yummy!
I have one organic sweet waiting to become slips.. in the fridge. I'm going with the end of November to pull it out and get it started. I'm thinking about cutting it in half and starting some a month later.
It's still busting into the 80s daily here in middle of nowhere, Georgia… not for all day now though. I love this time of year. I'm ready for daylight savings time to go away too.
I'm going to have to go in containers.. I've discovered on this newish property that the dirt here (not soil) eats organic matter. Licks the plate clean even.
I have a bed I've been prepping since June for elephant garlic, 4x12ish. I dumped two big bags of peat moss on it, stirred it up and have been piling grass clippings on it since. I went out last week to grab some for a soil test..add in fall leaves and you would never know there had been any peat moss at all.. grey sandy clay.. dries to hard as rock but when you do get that stone broken, it's sand. I hadn't even tilled it in, just stirred it a little with a rake and watered it in.
All that's left is grass clippings and dirt… bonus.. about 6" down, hard pack.
I was very interested in this and this was the first time I watched one of your videos. No offense but I was literally yelling at my phone to get to the point. Not for me.
second comment.. YT edit isn't working right.
Those little ones.. shred through a food processor,, sweet potato hash browns.. spicy or sweet.. I leave the skins on. yum
This is my kind of video. Never thought to grow a sweet potato before, and never knew I could root stems from one either. Looking forward to trying this out in a few months. Hi from Northern Ireland 👋
Wow, great video! Once you grow them your hooked and their delicious as you know. I'm in N.Y and this was my 3rd year growing them. I purchased two organic ones and started the slips in the soil as the water method takes forever. They do like loose soil and I plant them in the deep mulch around June 15th and dig them up at the end of October. I also have gotten a different variety from my orange ones. Have no idea what my first two even was. But every year I save some to make slips for the next season. This year was a hard one because of the drought and can't wait for next year already. Good luck to you I'll be watching!
This is the only way I've ever grown sweet potatoes, once I had a 65+ pound harvest from 2 potatoes… Excellent video Gardener Scott 🙏 Kendra
smaller ones will cook quicker… 🙂
I don't feel so bad now…two seasons in a row I've had total failure with both sweet and regular potatoes. Zone 9 soil seems to be key.
Its great that they came out small. Perfect for slicing and roasting!
I grew sweet potatoes for the first-time last year and was pleasantly surprised with the results. I grew again this year and some of my slips were eaten by some critter, so I ended up with 1 slip that I put in a 10 gallon grow bag. It grew and produced about 10 sweet potatoes about the size of yours. What I didn't know was that I should have waited until about now to harvest. I know they like hot, humid weather and your suggestion of putting plastic over the bed (or grow bag) sounds like a great idea to increase the heat and humidity. Thank you for this video.
I planted my first sweet potato bed in a new raised bed this summer…had the same problem with size for the same soil reasons. I didn't have the proper curing conditions either and mine didn't get very sweet. Mine were paler inside and darker on the outside. Will definitely try again next summer.
So do you just cut sections of that stem and sprout all of them?
Hi Scott, thanks for the encouraging video. Zone 6A Rhode Island here. A few thoughts: The last two years I bought slips, which luckily were available at my local Home Depot – $6.00 for 6, or $1 each. Your pricing comment might have referred to online purchasing, which probably is more in the $2 per plant range. I am pretty sure my Bonnie Plants slips were the Beauregard variety. I think it might be one of the most productive – it is one of the most common varieties also, as far as I can tell. It is one of the stereotypical light brown skin, orange flesh varieties. I planted them in one of my beds that gets the absolute most sun (along with three eggplants which did great also.) I had my best harvest I have had in four years as a result. My first couple of years, I grew slips also, the first year with good results, and last year no results at all. I think I will try again next year to grow my own slips. We had a particularly hot and dry summer here in RI, so I think that helped also. I think the hotter and dryer the weather, and also as long as possible of a growing season are the key factors, along with the Beauregard variety, which I have had the most luck for producing the largest sweet potatoes.
I've done this with success
You definitely enjoyed that sweet potato!!! I grew some in huge flower pots and large tubs. Trellised them up cattle panels. I got a harvest similar to yours! Will be using them for holiday meals as pie, candied or souffle! I'm going to try something different and keep the vine to grow more slips! They're rooting already! I will see what happens! Thanks Gardener Scott, hope to see ya Monday! Blessings
Scott, I tried to send you a message on your website but the 'submit' button wasn't working. Here is my question (sorry that it isn't necessarily about sweet potatoes):
I am a new, new, NEW gardener, and I would like to know if putting a squirrel feeder in my yard AWAY from my garden will keep squirrels "over there" so they'll have no interest in my garden, or will it simply attract squirrels to my yard to discover (and devour) my garden? Please note I'm not asking for tips for pest control, I am curious about this specific thing. Thank you in advance for your response.
I had very mixed results with store bought sweet potatoes. All four of my Okinawan sweet potatoes rotted instead of sprouting, probably because they're grown in Hawaii and had to be sprayed with inhibitors to make the trip to the mainland. Two of the four red sweet potatoes also rotted, despite being bought organic, but the two that sprouted kept producing more slips than I knew what to do with. I experimented with planting them in partial shade, full shade, and full sun, and as expected, the ones planted in full sun did the best. I'm in zone 7b but we still have not had our first frost yet, and the forecast for November is actually quite warm, so I'm going to leave the sweet potatoes in the ground as long as they will grow.
This video is encouraging! You got a great harvest of sweet potatoes. I think I will try growing them in a small square sized bed I have. I failed at trying to grow slips before but I will try again. I love muraski sweet potatoes from Trader Joe’s so I am going to try that variety.
I did the exact thing this spring, but had spectacular results. I planted 7 slips into a mound of half finished compost. It was a brand new mini bed, starter right on the lawn. I used some cardboard, to smother out the grass. Zone 6a, here with a hot and dry summer. Almost no pest pressure. I noticed that plants like an afternoon watering, mimicking the tropics. I got like 25 lbs and harvested like the end of September. I harvested that early because the tubers had started to poke through the now finished compost.
Next year will be better … great try. I bet the roast would be great with rosemary!
Maybe try growing them in your greenhouse.
Congrats on your sweet potato harvest in Colorado! Pretty amazing that you were able to grow them there. I learned from your video that we can just leave our sweet potatoes longer to cure when we don't have the ideal humid and temperature conditions. Thank you!
Minus the small size, that looks like a decent crop of sweet potatoes. I'm in Alberta, and we have a similar weather to Colorado. Certain things do need the right climate to grow. I've tried growing other things I've bought in a grocery store, and sometimes they were a success. Other times, it's not possible, due to growth inhibitors, like you mentioned. Cheers, Scott! ✌️
Add a bale of peat. Moss to that soil and that should help those sweet potatoes. Also, out there you should water twice a day and it's time consuming. You might want to put a 55 gallon plastic water drum up on the side and use a drip line. That would increase your yeild! I grew them in Stratton Colo. Back in the 70's. Good luck.
I've already got jars of slips all over in the house for next year. And I also have some planted in big pots indoors, as well as the original sweet potatoes the slips r from growing in pots. I got the originals from a local colorado farmer who shares many of his crops at the local church food bank. I love sweet potatoes! Ur awesome gardener Scott! ☺
The secret to growing large sweet potatoes is lose soil and consistent moisture. I grow mine in hills, covered, with black plastic, and a soaker hose. One year I grew 8 pound sweet potatoes. If I had harvested them earlier they of course would have been smaller. They were not only beautiful but very tasty. Sweet potatoes do not require a lot of fertilizer. I hope this helps.
Growing slips from store bought organic sweet potatoes does indeed work, but the problem is you don't know what variety your growing. In your zone, it's to your advantage to one-time purchase specific slips that require a shorter growing season. Then each year you can use your own short season variety to grow the upcoming season's slips. Another trick I use in my zone 5, is to warm the soil with black plastic a couple of weeks before planting.
Because I usually buy organic sweet potatoes at the grocery store, and they often sprout, I start a lot of sweet potato slips each year. I hardly ever grow a sweet potato that's larger than a large egg. It's typically very dry here in early summer, and although daytime temperatures can be hot, at night it gets chilly. Like yours, the sweet potatoes I grow taste good, and I get a lot of them. My dogs love them, too, and they think it's a great treat to have some roasted sweet potato chunks mixed with their food.
Sweet potatoes are also a wonderful treat for dogs. Feed them sparingly, because they are pretty high in simple carbs. They should be cooked… raw they can eventually wear down the dog's teeth.
Thank you! That's inspiring.
Hello from Manitoba, Canada. 🙂 I've been growing sweet potatoes for more than a decade now. Your spring breaking times aren't that different from ours. I'm in Zone 2b. I also only grow from store bought organic tubers. My trick is to start them rooting at the end of January, first week of February, then I put them in fairly large pots, or even better a plastic shoebox like container. BPA free, of course. There they grow until the soil is warm enough. When I had greenhouse toppers on my sweet potatoe bed I was able to get them in the ground a month earlier. That made a bigger difference than extending in the fall. 🙂 More and stronger sunlight hours. I hope this helps.