Sweet potatoes

[lizzie]

Hi everyone. Has anyone grown sweet spuds? If so, was it worth it? Any advice please for me and Grockie? Thanks

[Chantal]

Hi Lizzie

I've grown them three times.

First time it was a great success with masses of sweet potatoes. I dug them up and carefully laid them in a cool place to keep them fresh. Within 24 hours the whole lot had turned black as they need to be stored somewhere warm!

Second time I had about 3 small sweet potatoes.

Third time there were none.

With the cost of the slips I think it worked out at around £12 per sweet potato that lasted long enough to be cooked.

Storage in a warm place isn't an easy option if you do have a lot, so unless they are cooked down, mashed and frozen I'm not sure of a cheap way of doing this. As I prefer roasted sweet potato I'm not bothering to grow them again.

Sorry to sound so negative, but that's my experience.

[Westi]

Hi I grow them each year with varying success but usually get
enough good sized ones to make it worthwhile. I don't buy slips
but pop some bought sweet potatoes into the airing cupboard to chit - it
can take a while but each sweet potato then gives me 6 - 10 good
strong shoots. I cut these off and pot them on with a little bit of
warmth initially. When the weather is right and they are a good few inches long with shiney healthy leaves I plant out through black plastic for a bit of extra warmth and as well as the soil being in fairly good condition underneath I also give them a bit of seaweed feed from time to time.

I have never had any success with bought slips and the price is too high
to not succeed. I will start them off about March and harvest when the first frost is iminent - but always have a little poke around and take the odd one that is a good size before this!

Westi

[thetangoman]

Thanks for this..was going to ask the same question.Love these sweet poatoes when added to mash spuds ...and thought about growing them .may not bother now though after reading the problems !!

[Mike Vogel]

2008 Bought 10 slips from GardenOrganic. 3 died. Got some surprisingly good-sized tubers from 3 and 3 others produced tubers good enough to have made it worth my while. The rainfall in August was considerable and the weather was quite warm, mimicking their native conditions.

2009 Same number bought. 3 survived and produced nothing of any consequence.

2010 Bought 30 [3 varieties x10] from T & M. Most of the slips survived and I lost about 4 plants after putting in the ground. By October about 6 plants had grown well enough to produce tubers of a good size and I got a number of longish but thinnish tubers off the rest. These have been frozen are ane still waiting to be used. We had 115 mm of rain in August but it wasn't often all that hot.

I shall try again this year, but I am beginning to feel that the results are not worth the effort, even though the taste of yoiur own produce is fantastic.

So I would recommend you give it a try, but they need a lot of compost or manure dug in the previous autumn and a lot of time spent watering and protectiing from the cold spells.

[Chantal]

Thanks for the tip Westi, I'll have another go if I can grow my own slips. I don't mind making the effort and not succeeding, it was the cost of not succeeding that really freaked me out.

[Mike Vogel]

One is usually warned off using off-cuts from shop-bought produce, because it often comes from abroad and is genetically adapted for te country of origin.

Having said that, however, I know that somem people find this to be very successful with crops such as garlic. Westi seems quite happy with her results. But Westi lives in Dorset, which gets a fair amount of rain from the Atlantic system and where the soil warms up more quickly in spring than it does here. So conditions in Dorset may be closer to those in her sweet potatoes' country of origin. You, Chantal, live in Rugby, where soil conditions take longer to get right temperaturewise; I don't know about your rainfall.

So it all depends. I might buy a tuber and take offshoots as Westi has done just as an experiment, but here in Bedford it takes time for the soil to get warm enough to plant out.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I like the idea of growing them from your own shop bought sweet potatoes. How much space do they need?, I think I might try a few in the greenhouse border when I switch the under soil cable on in April to get the tomatoes established and keep the late frosts off. As you say if you aren't paying for them it doesn't hurt to give them a go and if the heat is on anyway it isn't costing me any more.

[hilary]

Hi,
I think the main problem in the UK is the long growing season required of at least 150 warm/hot days and nights with the optimum temperature being between 21-30 C. But always worth a try - maybe grow under cloche or fleece or the potato method in a tub in the greenhouse?

[DiG]

I think you might need very large tubs. I tried growing some slips in 15 litre pots (1 per pot) in the polytunnel last year. They seemed to grow well but, unfortunately when I turned them out at the beginning of November, all I found was a tangled mess of very skinny pink 'snakes'. My neighbour grew hers in the ground, but protected with polythene, and had similar results. I might try Westi's method next time.

Regards, Diane

[Westi]

Hi again - I plant mine about 1 1/2 ft apart but do take note of the warm soil, even down here on the South Coast they don't grow very big unless under plastic to top up the warmth a bit. I also throw fleece over at the beginning and end of the season. You could try a litle hot bed for them up your way to give some extra oomph for a longer time maybe.

Good Luck either way - at least it's not as expensive to chit your own so worth an experiment.

Westi

[retropants]

I pop a sweet potato from the greengrocer's into a pot of compost, then into a heated propogator in a warm greenhouse in march/april. this will produce many, many shoots. I then take these off and pot them up and put into a large propogator that I have without the lid, and keep it on low-med heat until they are big enough and the weather is warm enough to plant them out into the GH border. plenty of water, and keep the stems off the soil, or they will root where they touch and compromise the harvest.