Topic: Transplanting sweet potatoes

[Annadl]

My sweet potatoes have finally sprouted their vines 2 feet through the mulch I had put in my compost bin especially for them.

The vines are now starting to sprout these little ‘roots’ and will obviously be crowded in my bin.  The trouble is how do I pull the whole plant with the ‘potato seed’ 2 feet under? Won’t I damage the plant?  How does the sweet potato grow?  Will these ‘roots’ set themselves into the soil and produce the sweet potatoes that way?  Or do I cover them with mulch the same as I did my normal potatoes? As you can see I don’t know how they grow or what i am doing!!! 

Also if I do transplant them does the garden bed for them need to be prepared in any special way?

Otherwise I will just have to leave them as is & learn from my experience.  I won’t be using a deep compost bin next year!!!

The vines are about 18 inches long now.

I am quite prepared to pull the compost bin apart if that is my best option.  My OH will then be totally convinced that I have gone mad ;D

Any advice would be wonderful. 

With everyones help & advice I have had success with my veges.  Even though it does sound like I don't know what I am doing I do get there.

Thanks
Anna

[john_miller]

This site may answer your questions:
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/veggies/sweetpotato1.html
From what I am reading there you may have planted your starts too deep- they seem to recommend 3 inches, not 24! Perhaps you may be best to thin the plants in situ?
I don't know if they are available in Australia but there are some varieties ('Blackie', 'Pink Frost', 'Margarita') with highly decorative foliage that can be grown as ornamental ground covers in a flower bed/pot and will produce edible roots too. Growing these may help save space in a vegetable garden, if it is limited.

[Jesse]

Anna, did you plant the whole potato? You need to produce the slips first, then plant these at an appropriate distance apart (can't remember what it is offhand) so they have plenty of room to grow and develop tubers. Here's a link to producing slips http://members.aol.com/SPVine/garden/garden1.htm. It sounds as though you've planted your tubers too deep, but perhaps if you carefully lift them and take the slips off planting them apart they may still produce some tubers, I would imagine the slips are very long if they're growing from a 2ft depth!

As for ground preparation I planted my sweet potato slips in the soil where I had finished digging up my new potatoes so the soil was soft, deep and well manured (I added a bit more manure to boost the soil after the potato crop), they produced well considering our short season.

Good luck and let me know how you get on, my sweet potato tubers are beginning to sprout slips so hopefully I'll have some to plant later this year. :)

[Annadl]

I cut up one large potato into a few pieces and planted them in the bottom of the bin as instructed by a 'manic' friend here (in Perth).  She also told me she was getting normal potatoes after a few weeks so I now know we are not on the same wavelength and maybe her advice may work on another planet ;D

So by hilling up my normal potatoes the sweet potatoes ended up 2 foot under. LOL!!

Anyways it looks like I will have to move them.  Luckily I have some normal spuds coming out of the ground soon so now I know where to put my sweet potatoes if I get them out in one piece.  Thanks for the great advice.

I will keep you posted.

Anna

[Jesse]

Anna if they're cut up, i.e. not all attached to one tuber, then it might be an idea to thin them in place like John suggested, I'd be concerned that at 2ft tall the plants might be damaged when you try to dig them out. If they're poking above soil surface now give them as much tlc as you can, they'll need lots of nutrients to start forming the tubers. At worst if it all fails put it down to experience and try again next year.

Potatoes in just a few weeks? she must be feeding them rocket fuel! ;D ;D