Sweet potato plants- worth a try?

[caroline7758]

I see Dobies are selling pot-ready sweet potatoes next year (not slips), 6 plants for £8.95.

Wondering whether to give them a go- I love SP but have never succeeded with growing slips in water and have never wanted to pay for slips either.

[caroline7758]

[goodlife]

If you like growing things..just for fun of it..yes..I would say it is worth of it..
I've tried growing sweetpotatoes many times now..and just not seem to get it right..if I do get crop it's never been anything to be proud of ::)
This year I did loads of slips but for some reason they never put growth on in right time..It wasn't untill August that some of them decided to start growing properly..and it's too late then for crop. I still have couple..alive..but not much bigger than they were in June..but one is going to save them and keep them alive as houseplants..and see what will happen over winter..little experiment going on...
I find doing slips easy it is the growing bit that doesn't agree with me for..

[Digeroo]

I had problems getting slips to grow until someone told me that they were sprayed with a retardant and it needs to be removed.  So once I have given the potatoes a going over with a scubbing brush they seem to produce slips quite readily.

Much to my surprise this also applied to organic ones.

I also have still not managed to get much in the way of sweet potatoes.  But for me £9 is a lot of money for a gamble.

[goodlife]

Yes...they do use that stuff quite commonly..I don't scrub mine but I do soak the potato for anything between 24-48 hrs..then I put the potato in propagator and let it sprout..once sprouted, I cut the slips off and put in pots or Jiffys to root (in propagator)..once rooted they go in GH to be potted on..but that's when mine normally goes 'pear shape'...they just sit and sulk..don't wanna grow but don't die neither.. ::)

[saddad]

SP's are quite successful in our big greenhouse Caroline...  :)

[SueK]

Hello all,
I noticed in the (paper) organic catalogue that they are selling slips of a variety called Georgia Jet which is supposedly reliable throughout the UK - unfortunately, the on-line entry doesn't repeat this claim, but T&M do on-line.  I must say that I'm tempted - apart from the fact that the price is nearly £15 for 10!

[saddad]

I grew Georgia Jet and Beauregard, both from T+M last year in a greenhouse. Beauregard were far better... yeild wise.  :-\

[fosters]

the problem with sweet potato's is that they like min of 120 day of good sun/heat just to do OK.
Not in UK unless inside. :)

[manicscousers]

I'm going to dig my sweet potato plants up this week, I'll see if I can find some plants from them to overwinter  :)

[caroline7758]

the problem with sweet potato's is that they like min of 120 day of good sun/heat just to do OK.
Not in UK unless inside. :)

Do you know whether it is heat rather than light (or both) that's important? Just wondering if they would grow in a shady greenhouse.

[fosters]

Sweet potato's grow on the floor of a semi tropical Forest, It is more the type of lite (to grow well they need about 16 to 18 hours of lite per day). They also need a warm but humid heat.

[fosters]

I think these are a good challenge, If it was easy they would be cheep in the shops .They don't get blite ,unlike my Xmas spuds did. :)

[plainleaf]

you plan on paying £8.95. 6 plants.  when I buy slips I pay the same amount $14.2
100 slips . But I buy whole sale.
you guys/girls really over pay for everything. 

[galina]

you plan on paying £8.95. 6 plants.  when I buy slips I pay the same amount $14.2
100 slips . But I buy whole sale.
you guys/girls really over pay for everything. 

Are you really offering to buy wholesale in the USA and send to the UK, so that we guys/girls don't have to overpay any longer?  Well, thank you.  There might be quite a lot of interest.

[plainleaf]

galina no i am not offering. second once count shipping and plant inspect service it would cost me twice much to shipper any thing to uk.
ps you can not ship plant material to uk besides seeds any way. 
pss doing so would  also deprive the uk goverment of tax. which I here they want all they can after  firing 500k goverment sector workers in next 4 years.

[Plot47a]

I've grown Makostar this year. 100% germination and they are whoppers. I have tasted them, (I know before the first frosts), ;) Tasty, sweet and a good texture. I'd post a piccie but I haven't sussed out how yet

[onionsquash]

Just dug mine. They were grown through woven plastic sheeting in a raised bed in Surrey. Not a particularly good year, but ten plants yielded just over 10kg. Some were so long they had gone into the subsoil and broke when digging. Plus the majority were spoiled by slug damage and won't store - may have to salvage as much as I can and freeze. Assuming they are under £2 a kg to buy, it's only just economic to grow them if you add the cost of plants and slug control. Having said that, it's the fun of growing as much of your household veg as possible and trying interesting things. I will definitely try again next year. The rooted plants were much easier to deal with than the mail order slips. But if I can store some tubers long enough I'll try making my own slips. 

[manicscousers]

we got 1 kg from one plant in the poly, the other has just grown 3 large plants from the remainder of the sweet potato..I'm going to pot these up and see if I can overwinter  ;D