Last Updated on June 20, 2026 by Homegrown Florida
If you’ve ever tried starting sweet potato slips in a glass of water and ended up with a slimy mess on your kitchen counter, you’re not alone. I’ve tried all the popular methods over the years, and honestly, most of them require more work than they need to.
After years of growing sweet potatoes in Florida, I’ve settled on a much simpler approach. It requires almost no effort, uses a single grocery store sweet potato, and can produce enough slips to fill an entire garden bed.
Last year, one sweet potato produced enough slips to grow over 30 pounds of sweet potatoes in my garden. Not bad for a few dollars and a little patience.
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Why Sweet Potatoes Are Different From Regular Potatoes
One of the biggest misconceptions I see is gardeners treating sweet potatoes like white potatoes.
Regular potatoes belong to the nightshade family. Sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family. They’re completely different plants that just happen to produce underground tubers.
With white potatoes, you can cut a potato into pieces and plant it.
Sweet potatoes technically can grow that way, but the results are usually disappointing. You’ll get a plant, but you typically won’t get the productivity that comes from growing them the way they’re meant to be grown.
Sweet potatoes are traditionally grown from slips.
A slip is simply a vine that sprouts from the sweet potato itself. Each slip becomes its own plant and eventually produces sweet potatoes underground.
Start With an Organic Sweet Potato
The easiest place to get started is your local grocery store. I always recommend buying an organic sweet potato if possible.
Many conventionally grown potatoes and root vegetables are treated with sprout inhibitors that help them stay fresh longer on store shelves. Organic sweet potatoes aren’t treated this way, so they generally sprout much more reliably.
If organic isn’t available, you can still try a conventional sweet potato. Just wash it thoroughly and allow it to dry before planting. It may still produce slips, but usually not as aggressively as an organic one.
My Lazy Method for Starting Sweet Potato Slips
This method is about as simple as gardening gets.
Take your sweet potato and bury it halfway in soil, leaving the top portion exposed. You can do this directly in a garden bed or in a shallow container.
I often use wide containers because they allow plenty of room for sprouts to emerge. Just make sure there is drainage so the potato doesn’t sit in soggy soil.
After planting:
- Water lightly about once a week
- Keep the soil slightly moist
- Avoid overwatering
- Let nature do most of the work
Then wait. And wait some more.
Sweet potato slips usually take between 4 and 8 weeks to develop depending on temperatures and growing conditions.
Clipping vs Breaking Off Slips
Once the vines reach a usable size, it’s time to harvest them. Most gardeners simply break the slips off the potato. That works, but I’ve started clipping them instead. Why?
Because clipping encourages the plant to branch.
Instead of producing one replacement slip, the potato often produces multiple new shoots from the cut location, giving me even more slips over time.
It’s a small change, but it can dramatically increase the number of plants you get from a single sweet potato.
Rooting Sweet Potato Slips
After clipping the slips, I place them in a mason jar filled with water. That’s it.
No rooting hormones. No special equipment. No changing the water every day.
I simply set the jar in a shaded location and wait until roots appear. Usually this takes about 3 to 5 days. Once roots are visible, the slips are ready to plant.
Could you skip this step and plant them directly? Absolutely.
But I’ve found rooted slips establish more reliably, especially during hot weather. Direct-planted slips can be a little dramatic and sometimes fail if they aren’t watered consistently during establishment.
Don’t Want to Make Slips? Buy Them.
If you’d rather skip the entire process, you can simply purchase sweet potato slips. I like to get mine from Grow Hoss. They have excellent varieties especially for warm weather climates. The first time you see them, you might think something is wrong.
Sweet potato slips often arrive looking rough. The leaves may be wilted, yellow, or partially dead. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re unhealthy. As long as the stems remain firm and show no signs of rot, they’re usually fine.
Once roots develop and the weather warms, they’ll quickly begin pushing out fresh growth.
Preparing a Bed for Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are one of the least demanding crops I grow. In fact, they often perform better in average soil than heavily fertilized beds.
Before planting, I simply:
- Remove weeds
- Loosen the soil
- Water deeply
- Apply a thick layer of mulch
And when I say thick mulch, I mean thick. During hot Florida weather, I use a heavy layer of leaves or other organic material to help reduce evaporation and protect the soil from extreme heat. The mulch eventually breaks down and improves the soil as the season progresses.
Planting Sweet Potato Slips
Once roots have formed, planting is easy. I space my slips about 12 inches apart.
To plant them:
- Dig a small hole at an angle.
- Lay as much of the stem underground as possible.
- Cover the stem with soil.
- Leave the growing tip exposed.
- Water thoroughly.
Don’t worry if some leaves get buried. Sweet potatoes are incredibly forgiving.
Can You Grow Sweet Potatoes in Containers?
Absolutely. I’ve grown sweet potatoes successfully in containers for years. Will you get the same harvest as an in-ground garden? No.
But you’ll still harvest a surprising amount of food from a relatively small space. For gardeners with patios, balconies, or limited yard space, containers are still a worthwhile option.
Caring for Sweet Potatoes
This is my favorite part. Once established, sweet potatoes are mostly on their own.
For the first week or two:
- Water regularly
- Watch for wilting
- Help them establish roots
After that, they become one of the easiest crops in the garden. I don’t routinely fertilize them. I don’t spray for pests. I don’t treat them for diseases. They simply grow.
Eventually the vines spread out and cover the soil, acting like a living mulch that helps suppress weeds and protect moisture levels.
Why I Love Growing Sweet Potatoes
Beyond the harvest itself, sweet potatoes improve the garden.
Their vines shade the soil, their roots help loosen compacted ground, and all that organic matter eventually breaks down and feeds the soil. By the time I’m ready to plant my fall garden, the bed is usually in fantastic shape.
They’re productive, drought tolerant once established, low maintenance, and incredibly forgiving.
For a crop that requires so little work, it’s hard to beat sweet potatoes.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve struggled with complicated slip-starting methods in the past, give this approach a try. Start with one organic sweet potato, bury it halfway in soil, wait for slips to develop, root them in water, and plant them out. It’s simple, inexpensive, and surprisingly productive.
Sometimes the best gardening method is also the laziest one. And when it comes to sweet potatoes, that’s exactly what I’ve found.
