How do I start my own sweet potato slips?

Start your slips by placing sections of mature sweet potato in a jar or glass of water with half of the potato below the water and half above . Use toothpicks to hold the sweet potato in place. The slips need warmth, so put them on a window ledge or on top of a radiator.

How long does it take to start sweet potato slips in water?

The traditional method of making sweet potato slips is suspending the sweet potato in water. This method works, but often takes 6-8 weeks (or more) to produce slips.

How many sweet potatoes grow from one slip?

One potato tuber will often produce more than a handful of sprouts or slips. These slips are removed from the original tuber by a careful twist, or, by keeping them attached to the tuber and slicing them off. Each of those slips can grow into a plant that can produce about 6 sweet potatoes .

Can you plant sweet potato slips without roots?

A lack of roots is not going to negatively impact yield or viability . They will all grow if planted in a favorable environment. Many commercial sweet potato growers, who plant thousands of acres each year, prefer to plant bare-root slips.

Should I soak sweet potato slips before planting?

Growing Your Own Slips Start 6–8 weeks before planting time. Soak the sweet potatoes in water for 2 hours .

Is it too late to start sweet potato slips?

While many will think that it is getting too late to plant sweet potatoes after the first of June, year after year of research done here has indicated that slips set out when the weather is very warm will outgrow and out-produce ones set out even as much as a month earlier .

What month do you plant sweet potatoes?

The best time to plant sweet potato plants is after the ground is thawed and after the last spring frost date has passed. If the ground doesn't freeze in your location, then the best time to plant is usually a month after your last spring frost date .

How do you speed up sweet potato slips?

Grab a tall walled container. I'm using a milk carton with the side cut out of it. Add half an inch of soil, water it, place your sweet of choice right into, then place it on the heat mat, and after 14 days, the slips will emerge, which we will immediately bury with vermicular, lighter soil.

Do sweet potatoes need to be watered everyday?

Newly planted sweet potato slips will need to be watered daily during their first week outside. Watering every other day during the second week will help establish plants. Once the plants are established, sweet potatoes can be watered once a week.

Can I grow a sweet potato vine from a store-bought sweet potato?

You can start your own slips, sprouts from an existing sweet potato, by purchasing “seed” sweet potatoes from a nursery; or you can start slips from tubers purchased from the grocery store .

How do you start sweet potato slips in potting soil?

How to Grow Sweet Potato Slips in Soil Wash the sweet potato(es) thoroughly. Moisten your potting soil or sand and fill your container. Set your sweet potato(es) lengthwise in the pot so that the lower half is buried with soil (or sand). Water to seat the soil around the sweet potato. More items... Apr 19, 2023

Can I plant sweet potato directly in soil?

Unlike regular potatoes, you can't just plant a whole sweet potato in the ground and expect a crop; it will rot underground . Sweet potatoes are grown from sweet potato slips. Slips are the stems and foliage that sprout from already grown sweet potatoes. Twist them off the potato, root them in water, then plant them.

Can I start my own sweet potato vine?

Growing sweet potato vines from seed is challenging and rarely done. Garden center varieties either don't bloom or are sterile. Growing from cuttings or tubers is much easier and will allow you to propagate a plant that is identical to the mother plant .

How to Start Your Own Sweet Potato Slips (2024)

Gardening
Edible Gardening
Vegetable Gardening

Here's how to grow sweet potato slips in soil or water.

Rita Pelczar

Rita Pelczar is a lifelong gardener and experienced horticulturist. She shares her enthusiasm for growing plants and environmentally responsible practices through teaching, coaching, and extensive writing. She has worked in the field for over 40 years, and has been writing for 30 years.

Tuber or Not Tuber

Unlike most veggies, sweet potatoes are not started from seed; neither are they started from whole tubers or chunks of the tuber like potatoes. That’s because sweet potatoes are not tubers—which are modified stems—but a different type of storage organ called a tuberous root.

How to Start Your Own Sweet Potato Slips (2)

When to Start Sweet Potato Slips

Aim to plant your sweet potato slips in the ground about three weeks after your area's last frost date in spring, when the soil has completely warmed up. Sweet potatoes are quite sensitive to cold, so you don’t want to rush this.It will take 6-8 weeks for the slips to develop, so count back about 10 weeks before your last expected frost, and that’s the time to start your slips.

If some of your slips are ready a bit before planting time, it’s easy to hold them in a jar of water for a few weeks (they will continue to make roots). Plus, sweet potatoes will keep producing new slips over a period of a few weeks, so this gives you some flexibility.

What You’ll Need to Make Slips

Sweet potato: Make sure it’s healthy and hasn’t been treated or waxed to prevent sprouting, or you will have frustrating results. Your best bet is to buy organic. A single sweet potato usually produces 10 to 20 good slips, so if you want to plant more than that in the garden, you will need additional starter sweet potatoes.
Sand or potting soil.
Container with drainage hole. It should be large enough to lay the sweet potato on its side but needn’t be very deep—3 or 4 inches will do.
Clean straw to help retain moisture. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it can help encourage the shoots to develop.

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How to Grow Sweet Potato Slips in Soil

Wash the sweet potato(es) thoroughly.
Moisten your potting soil or sand and fill your container.
Set your sweet potato(es) lengthwise in the pot so that the lower half is buried with soil (or sand).
Water to seat the soil around the sweet potato. Keep the soil moist but not soaking wet. A mister can come in handy here.
If you are using straw, cover the sweet potato and soil surface with a light layer.
Place the pot in a warm, sunny room.
After about a month, you should start to see shoots sprouting from the tuberous root. Most will come out of one end—the sprouting end. You may see roots develop from the opposite end.
Once the shoots are 5-6 inches long, remove them—just break them off where they come out of the sweet potato—and place them in a jar of water in a sunny window or under grow lights until you’re ready to plant. The slips will continue to develop roots in water and the original sweet potato will continue to produce slips for a few weeks.

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Starting Sweet Potato Slips in Water

Slips can also be started by submerging a part of the sweet potato in water, but this method usually takes a bit longer.

Examine the sweet potato and determine which is the sprouting end—it will have more nodes or “eyes” than the opposite end. If you can’t tell, put the sweet potato in a warm room for a few days—the nodes should become more apparent.
Push three or four toothpicks into the sweet potato to hold the sprouting end above the water.
Set the lower end (the rooting end) in a jar of water and wait for your slips to form. It may take several weeks.
Detach them and place them in water where they will develop roots.

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Harvesting Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes should be harvested in the fall when the weather cools off, and the vines start to wither before the first frost. Be gentle with your sweet potatoes when you're removing them. Allow the soil remaining on the sweet potatoes to dry before brushing it off, or the skin can be damaged. Cure the sweet potatoes for a few days for optimal flavor. Follow these steps to learn more about harvesting sweet potatoes.

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