Sweet Potato

[saddad]

I was hoping to get one to flower, supposed to be beautiful... like Morning Glory?
8)

[saddad]

[Robert_Brenchley]

You cook the leaves like spinach. I've only had them in Sierra Leonean dishes, where they're chopped up fine, and cooked with meat, fish, palm oil and chili. It sounds as though you can get plenty, so I may try them next year.

[Leonnie]

Robert if you drop me a pm in the spring I'll send you some slips if I have any to spare. The ones I'm growing are better suited to our short growing season.

[Robert_Brenchley]

OK, thanks. It'll be interestimg to try it.

[manicscousers]

I let my plants sprawl along the ground this year(first time of growing), bit disappointed, but read in gyo magazine, grow them up canes, like toms, so the vines don't grow extras, also, grew my own slips from a supermarket potato, in a box of damp compost in february on the windowsill, so will try growing them up next year

[cookie]

Thought that I would show of my sweet potatoes.The very first time that we have grown them. We started with a  potato from our local organic veg shop, grew the slips, planted them out, and forgot all about them!!!!!!!!!!!

[saddad]

I've not harvested mine yet so keeping fingers crossed for some worthwhile tubers..
8)

[Leonnie]

you've got some nice size tubers there, well done :)

[Two Choices]

Sorry for asking the such a basic question but what are slips? Is it like chitting ordinary potatoes? Also how far apart do you sow the plants / rows?
Thanks

[Leonnie]

Take a look here http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/component/option,com_mambowiki/Itemid,92/ and if you do a search on the forum there's quite a bit of info to be found (but the search button isn't working at the moment). I planted mine about 40cm apart.

[cookie]

 To get your sweet potato slips,take a sweet potato and insert some cocktail sticks around the middle of it. Suspend the potato in a jar of water, so that half is below and half is above the water, hence the cocktail sticks. The bit in the water will grow ordinary roots, the bit above the water will grow the slips(shoots). When these get to about 6" long, break them of very carefully, and place in a jar of water, these will in turn grow roots. We put our slips out in May, we made a ridge and planted them on the apex. They need a long growing season. Our allotment drains very well, and we have limited water, In fact they were only watered when we planted them.Good luckfor next year!!

[Folly]

This is the second year that I have grown sweet potatoes. Although my allotment is situated in Cheshire I had a good crop last year. So far Ive dug up two plants and found about 7lb of roots.

The original slips were T65 stock not Beauregard. I kept the roots of a couple of plants indoors with a few leaves through the winter, then took cuttings in the spring. The roots didn't do well on replanting but the cuttings did. This year I've taken cuttings and put them in the greenhouse- seem to be doing well.

This year I grew plants in three sites
1. through black plastic- excellent growth and good roots harvested already
2. just in the soil nearby- poor growth, don't expect much underground.
3. on a shavings horse manure muck heap. I lost all but one plant to rabbits but the growth of the survivor is stunning.

The leaves are great in a stir fry or used as spinach (try 4oz wilted down as spinach quiche). I froze cooked leaves last year for quiche. They aren't pleasant raw- a bit hairy.

The big problem to my mind is storing the roots: I've read that  they only last two weeks in a cool dark place so last year I froze them as cooked mash.

This year the slugs have found them as well (I'm growing organically). I'm going to try 'curing' in a large propogator. Apparently keeping them 2 weeks at 25C and 90% humidity makes them store much better. I'll let you know if that's right.

[saddad]

Curing is the way to get them to keep, then kept above 10 or 15C... is that humidity figure right? I can't imagine anything not rotting at those figures!
???

[Kea]

I'm interested in knowing just how far north they have been successfully grown. I want to grow slips from the Kumara I have bought in Sainsbury's. It's only grown in the North of the North Island in New Zealand right at the edge of it's temperature range. New Zealand must be the coolest climate that it was grown in (before being grown more widely) so I'm guessing that it should be the easiest sweet potato to grow in Southern Britain.  So successful sweet potato growers how far north are you?

[mc55]

am very excited having seen all these encouraging posts, so I'll be digging up mine on Thursday ... not sure what to expect (Sheffield)

[Folly]

When I've worked out how to post a photo I'll post one.

So far the crop has been:
1. planted through black plastic: first two plants harvested 7lb,
third plant 4lb
2. plants straight into soil 2 plants 1lb 10oz total
3. planted in much heap one plant just 12oz This was planted 4 weeks later than the others.

Seems to show:
get the slips growing well indoors, plant through plastic as soon as the frost risk is reduced- wait to the end of May and the crop is small. Last year there was a light September frost. Fleece protected the leaves- but where there was a tear the leaves went black.

[Leonnie]

I'm in Sussex so quite south as things go.

With regard to curing, this year with the first tubers I lifted in Sept I put them in a sealed plastic bag in our airing cupboard for a week (the tubers were damp to give humidity). I think a week was too long because they started to sprout, only just though. I moved them to our larder where they are now dry and cool and the sprouting has stopped and there are no signs of mould, rotting or anything bad, it's a month later and they are looking good.

Last year I did the same with the tubers but left them for only 2-3 days before leaving in our dry but very cool conservatory (temps fluctuating between approx 5C and 16C) and they kept well until Jan/Feb. I had lifted them around Sept/Oct so that was a good 4-5 months. They might have kept longer but by that time we'd eaten them all apart from the three that I had set aside for more slip production.

[Kea]

How many slips did you get from 3 tubers?

[Folly]

As promised here's a photo of the three best tubers from my Cheshire allotment. Not as good as others but I'm pleased!  ;D

[saddad]

Look good enough to me Folly.... almost tempted to dig mine up... I'm holding off as long as poss...
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