When do you usually start planting your sweet potatoes? I’m in zone 7b and curious how others time it.
By the way, I came across what’s probably the most detailed YouTube guide I’ve seen on growing sweet potatoes. It shows the whole process step by step with some really useful tips. Thought it might help others here too:
I glanced at the video, and I imagine it works fine although much of it is unnecessary. I just put mine in trays of damp sand and put them outside in the sun, and cover with plastic if a cold snap threatens, or in an unheated cold frame. I do that about mid-May and generally mid-June or maybe a bit sooner I snap off the slips trim off extra roots and stick them in the ground. Sweet potatoes slips are not nearly as finicky as seems to be commonly believed.
I don't know what zone I'm in anymore, I'll just say 6-ish.
Jeff David wrote:When do you usually start planting your sweet potatoes? I’m in zone 7b and curious how others time it.
By the way, I came across what’s probably the most detailed YouTube guide I’ve seen on growing sweet potatoes. It shows the whole process step by step with some really useful tips. Thought it might help others here too:
Usually wait until the soil has really warmed up, like mid to late May for me. Sweet potatoes hate cold soil.
Usually I see the potatoes in storage start to sprout. Often I have some small, healthy looking ones sorted out separately for seed, small enough to fit into the pots I use. Then I lay them just under the surface, sorted by variety marked with small labeled stakes, in shallow pots. Trays or flats of some sort would do as well. Then I keep them wherever it's warmer, in or out, bringing them in in cooler weather. If it's too cold to plant them out when they are long enough (like3 or 4 inches with at least a couple of leaves), I will either cut them back or else break them off and move to another pot for later planting. More sprouts will come off the same potatoes at least 2 or 3 times. There are some varieties that simply don't want to sprout, and sometimes this changes year to year. If I must have these types (I don't any more) I keep them going by vine cuttings as a houseplant through winter, then cut up the vine for more in the spring.
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