Remember those sweet potato slips I grew….

Remember those sweet potato slips I grew….

Bed 1

If you read my blogs from time to time you might remember I did a partial experiment with growing my own sweet potatoes by taking one sweet potato and growing slips to make new plants.

They grew well. In fact, a little too well. I got rather more plants than I really wanted from that one potato.

When I put them outside in the garden, they really started to grow and grow and grow. It seemed before I knew it  they were forming vines and growing up the old pea fence.

Bed 2

So I looked for info up on the internet and found out that if you let them vine on the ground, they form new roots along the vine and your harvest will be small sweet potatoes. If you provide a fence or something to climb,  they will make one large potato for each root. Asl I know how difficult they are to peel from the skin when you go to cook them ,I am opting for large ones. That is of course if I get any at all!!

 I am not at all sure when you know when it is time to harvest. Some info pages  say first  they will also produce purple flowers and then the leaves will dies. They are similar to the morning glory plants so I guess I will wait and see what happens when the weather gets cooler as I know they really like hot weather to grow.

To be continued……