Sand Hill Preservation - sweet potatoes

[fortyonenorth]

I'm interested in trying sweet potatoes this year for the first time. Sand Hill has a mind-boggling selection and I'd like to limit my experiment to only one or two varieties. Can anyone recommend a productive, early, orange or red-fleshed variety for the north?

[DuckCreekFarms]

Two that were extremely productive and great last season was 8633. It has excelent keeping qualities as well..... Hernandez was an excellent producer and great tasting. I sent 8633 to SHP last season and see they have it listed this year.

Bradshaw (Mahan) is an outstanding variety as well.



more descriptions are here http://duckcreekfarms.com/sweetpotato.shtml

[fortyonenorth]

Thanks DuckCreek - I hadn't looked beyond Sand Hill, but I see you list sweet potatoes, too. That's good to know.

What can I expect in terms of production from one slip? In other words, how many slips do I need to plant in order to produce a decent harvest for a family of four?

[lurley]

Fortyonenorth,

I always plant at least a dozen slips, sometimes two dozen but I have a large family and we don't eat them all the time. I always used to order slips of Georgia Jet and they did well but last year a friend gave me locally grown slips that she swore by....they did REALLY well so I will be starting my own slips from some of the tubers I saved. Several were over a foot long, two were over two feet although skinnier.
It will be my first year trying it but I understand it's not too difficult. I could send you some if it works out, just to compare to whatever kind you might order.

[fortyonenorth]

Originally Posted by lurley

I will be starting my own slips from some of the tubers I saved.

At the risk of asking a dumb question....

I know what tubers are, but what are slips?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by fortyonenorth

At the risk of asking a dumb question....

I know what tubers are, but what are slips?

Slips are potato plants grown from tuber cuttings.

[lurley]

They are little plants with small roots that you "slip" off of the "mother tuber" Each slip gets planted and grows into its own sweet potato vine. Like when your regular potatoes get old and start to sprout from their eyes, only it becomes a small vine with its own little set of mini roots.

[wmontanez]

I am also looking to get sweetpotatoes, the northern sampler from Sandhill looks interesting to try.

[desertlzbn]

I have no idea how to grow sweet potato slips, I just put one in a planter, and two in my strawberry bed, do they need to be hilled like regular potatoes? How long to they take to grow?
Are they cold weather or hot weather crops?

[kath]

Sweet potatoes love heat and need a long growing season. To grow slips, I hang a sweet potato in a glass of water with toothpicks holding it in place, but it takes a month or more for the slips to sprout and grow long enough to break off. These slips are then put in another glass of water to grow roots, which also takes a couple weeks. Finally, these are planted in rows of hilled up soil (when the nights are consistently in the 50's), spaced about 12" apart. I use a black woven ground cover to cover the hilled rows (about 12-15" high) and put this in place at least a week before planting to help warm the soil. I plant them here at the very end of May and leave them in the ground to grow until the first frost, but before a hard freeze. The tubers get large in the last month of growing, but can be damaged if they are in cool/cold temps for too long and won't store as well.

You can also grow slips by laying a tuber in sand and covering it halfway and keeping the sand wet. There might be other ways that I don't know about.

I don't think that trying to bury them and grow them like regular potatoes would work.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by desertlzbn

I have no idea how to grow sweet potato slips, I just put one in a planter, and two in my strawberry bed, do they need to be hilled like regular potatoes? How long to they take to grow?
Are they cold weather or hot weather crops?

Since you've posted in the Sandhill Sweet Potato thread I'll suggest that you go their website and read the long description that Glenn has written about sweet potatoes at the beginning of the Sweet Potato section.

Wendy, above, mentioned Glenn's Northern Selection, and every variety he lists has a rough days to maturity.

So see if that doesn't help you better understand what conditions they need and what the best varieties are for different geographic areas and how to best grow them.

[wmontanez]

I ordered one Northern Sampler from Sandhill it should arrive around late May early June and a closeout sampler of some other Early varieties (90 days) that should arrive around late June. Since sweet potato is a warm weather crop and being in Zone 6a I never though to grow them. But the way Sandhill catalog explains it is with heat units. They explain that heat units are the average between daily high temperature (maximum) and the low temperature (minimum) minus 55 for an ideal 1200 heat units for early varieties. Say you have 90F during the day and low is 70F then you have 25 units of heat then I need ~50 days. So for me in late June to late August my temps are perfect. Based on that info I ordered some and I plan to grow them in a raised bed that is kept warming up until the slips arrival. So basically in 2 months I should get some sweet potatoes and that is great for early fall crop. Even if it does extend into Sept/October then the frost should kill the vines and still give me a good harvest. I should let people know how I do in the fall!

[desertlzbn]

Thanks, Carolyn,
I did not even think of going to the Sandhill site.
LOL

[macmex]

I LOVE growing and eating sweet potatoes!
Here's link to an article I wrote, for a local paper, on growing them. Maybe it will help someone.

George
Tahlequah, OK

http://www.currentland.com/ViewArticle/536/Default.aspx

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by macmex

I LOVE growing and eating sweet potatoes!
Here's link to an article I wrote, for a local paper, on growing them. Maybe it will help someone.

George
Tahlequah, OK

http://www.currentland.com/ViewArticle/536/Default.aspx

George, I didn't recognize you with this user name.

I checked your public profile and while you joined in Aug of 2006 you've made only 41 posts in about 5 years, so how about posting more b'c you have a lot to offer as I see it.