Starting Sweet potato slips or plants

[Weedygarden]

I have yet to successfully grow sweet potatoes. I am looking for tips for all of you who have grown them successfully.

I had a colleague who grew a sweet potato plant in her classroom and grew it year round. I don't remember much about it, except that it was a nice vine.

I went to an Asian grocery store this week and purchased 4 smaller sweet potatoes, all different varieties to start them. I searched for information on how to grow them and came up with this video. I thought that people started them with the toothpicks in them suspended in a container of water. I think I have tried that before.

 

[DrHenley]

I have yet to successfully grow sweet potatoes. I am looking for tips for all of you who have grown them successfully.

I had a colleague who grew a sweet potato plant in her classroom and grew it year round. I don't remember much about it, except that it was a nice vine.

I went to an Asian grocery store this week and purchased 4 smaller sweet potatoes, all different varieties to start them. I searched for information on how to grow them and came up with this video. I thought that people started them with the toothpicks in them suspended in a container of water. I think I have tried that before.

I can get the plants to grow just fine, but they make tiny little potatoes a few millimeters in diameter.

 

[joel]

That the way my father did it, but he used a 2 X 4 fame full of sand in early April.

 

[Amish Heart]

I tried the dirt method and didn't work for me. Haven't tried the glass method, but might. It's just been easier just going across the road to a lady's greenhouse and picking up an eight pack of two inch starts for a couple of dollars. We've been doing that, and last year was really a bumper crop. I still have alot in the basement, we just had some boiled with butter the other night.

 

[Weedygarden]

I tried the dirt method and didn't work for me. Haven't tried the glass method, but might. It's just been easier just going across the road to a lady's greenhouse and picking up an eight pack of two inch starts for a couple of dollars. We've been doing that, and last year was really a bumper crop. I still have alot in the basement, we just had some boiled with butter the other night.

I don't think I have ever seen starts in nurseries and other places where I've gotten plant starts.

 

[RJ2019]

I sell slips in the spring, because its something the stores don't carry. My sweet potatoes from fall are already beginning to put out sprouts on a few tubers... I just take the sprouts off and put them in water to grow roots then either plant in 4" containers to sell or sell bareroot for a discount. Typically the ones I've potted up sell better.

To get the tubers to put out sprouts I leave them out in the counter or windowsill with a little water, one tuber will put out a TON of slips. I do red, orange and white sweet potatoes here, the purple ones never amounted to
Editing to add: I've been growing my own sweet potatoes and selling the slips from them for about 5 years now, so the kinds I have are somewhat locally adapted already which offers an advantage to local gardeners.