Kitchen Garden Forum

Can anyone offer any insight? I grew 2 differnt types of sweet potato last year in a poly tunnel in the Channel Islands. They were planted through black membrane to conserve moisture and fed with a tomoto feed and we had plenty of warm sun. They did produce loads of foliage but no more than a handful of very small(not useable) tubers. Any idea what happened? From memeory the varieties were T65 and beauregard from Thomson& Morgan. Jane

Did you give them lots of water, Jane? They are thirsty plants.

I believe I had the same 2 varieties from T&M. My tubers also ended up small, but I think i can use them. There was not all that much foliage. We had a rather cold July.

The soil needs to be quite rich, I think, for these plants. I'll try again; at least all the slips rooted, which is more than I can say from the ones I bought the previoous year from a different supplier.

Yes the soil never dried out. It is quite a light sandy soil perhaps I need to adda bit more humus.Thanks for the tips

Have tried making my own slips, placing sweet potato in a jar of water eyes uppermost lots of eyes grew slips, not sure what to do now to root them should I cut with a small chunk of potato to keep it going while it roots or take off shoot and try and root it in water ?
Do they need a sunny spot or some shade?

Not sure what to do about the slips I assume that you cut them off and place in compost. The slips I have received in the post had no material attached to them only the stem and few leaves. I have always grown them in sun-my previous crop outside did better but there was a hosepipe ban so they were not watered very much. Having said that the tubers were quite well sized and edible.

Thank you Jane.

I grew my own from sprouting bought tubers and just
cut up the sweet potato to separate the slips and
planted these on. This year I did really well with some
really big ones. The area I grew them was my old compost
heap in partial shade, planted through black plastic. They
did have a bit of wire worm attack but otherwise great.

The previous year I grew them on ridges with just pelleted
chicken manure mixed in the soil and they were all small
so I think it is humus and rich soil they need not my
sandy soil. This year I have a heap of strawy horse manure
under some black plastic on the bed I am planting them in
so fingers crossed.

Westi

Thanks Westi, does the top growth need support?

No Nature's Babe - they are like a vine and just scramble
across the black membrane. Some were about 1 1/2 foot
long but some were quite small but all produced a crop of
both big and small sweet potatoes. I had 12 plants, lost
1 and ended up with a small trug of large tubers and the
same of small.

The thing I do notice is you have to cut like a second layer
off the skin if peeling as it is pale for about 1/4in but then
bright orange - doesn't affect baking them in the skin but if
roasted they don't caramelise as well if this is left on. I don't
know if this was nutritional and they were missing something in
the soil or just that it wasn't that hot.

Enjoy growing them they are very low maintainance and only
the wire worm bothered them - no slugs, birds etc.

Westi