By: Kathleen Mierzejewski
Growing sweet potato plants is something every gardener should consider. They are an excellent source of vitamins A and C and low in fat. They are extremely hardy and very nutritious. They are great in both a garden and in a field, depending on how many you want to grow.
How to Grow a Sweet Potato Plant
You might be asking yourself about how to grow a sweet potato vine. Growing sweet potato is not too difficult. They are propagated with the potatoes themselves. This means you do not plant seeds but instead start new plants with slips or transplants.
You can purchase slips from your local garden center. However, if you are planing on growing sweet potato slips on a larger scale, you may want to purchase seed potatoes and make your own slips. You would simply bed your seed potatoes after soil temperatures reach at least 60 degrees F.
When growing sweet potato slips, you will want to start the seed potatoes by planting them at temperatures of 75 to 85 degrees F. They also need lots of humidity to sprout. Two to three weeks should do it and you should see growth beginning. To prevent any sort of fungus from forming you can actually dip the seed potato in a fungicide.
You can fertilize the ground when growing sweet potato slips from seed potatoes. Just top dress the ground with a general purpose fertilizer. Once the plants reach 12 to 15 inches tall, you can cut your slips by cutting the plants one inch above the soil line.
How to Start a Sweet Potato Plant
Once you cut your slips, you might wonder how to start a sweet potato plant. You simply take the slips and you can plant the slips in the field or a garden space set aside for growing sweet potato. You will want to plant them three to four inches deep and about 12 inches apart in rows that are about three to four feet apart. This should be done in late April for the best crop.
When thinking about how to start a sweet potato plant, remember that these are hardy and can withstand drought, but you should remember that they do require at least an inch of water a day to produce a good crop. Control the weeds around your plants as you would with anything else, cultivating and mulching around your growing sweet potatoes.
It takes about 95 to 120 days after transplanting the slips to have mature sweet potatoes. The leaves on the plants start turning yellow as with any potato when they are done. If you pull the plants a couple of days before digging up the potatoes, you will find you have tougher skins that protect the potatoes from damage during digging.
