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This year, I’ve decided to try a new method for growing sweet potatoes. While I still have some sweet potatoes planted in my raised beds, I’m also experimenting with a GreenStalk vertical planter. My goal is to find out which method yields the most sweet potatoes with the least effort.
Creating Sweet Potato Slips
The first step to growing sweet potatoes is creating slips. The easiest way I’ve found is to take sweet potatoes from your previous harvest, lay them on their side in the beds, and cover them halfway with dirt. After 4 to 8 weeks, you’ll start to see slips growing from the sweet potatoes. When they reach about 6 inches tall, you can either break them off or cut them and place them in a glass of water for 3 to 5 days to form new roots. Ensure the glass is in the shade to prevent the leaves from wilting.
This year, I opted to clip the slips as close to the sweet potato as possible without breaking them off. This method sped up the process as the slips regrew faster on the same sprout. Even if some slips grow larger than 6 inches, you can cut them in half and they will rform roots.
Growing Sweet Potatoes in the GreenStalk
For the GreenStalk planter, I use a small trowel to push into the dirt diagonally and insert the sweet potato slip as deep as possible. Planting at a diagonal helps ensure the roots reach the watering disc in the center, which keeps them hydrated, especially important in the hot Florida summer.
I staggered the planting in stages, starting with the bottom tier and moving up as more slips were ready. It’s crucial to water the slips generously for the first few days to help them acclimate. Once they start showing new growth, you can switch to watering from the top of the GreenStalk as usual.
Managing the Swwet Potato Vines
In the past, I allowed the vines to spread freely in my raised beds, but this year I’m using plant supports to wrap the vines around the GreenStalk. This method prevents the vines from rooting elsewhere, which I suspect might lead to smaller sweet potatoes. This experiment will help determine if vine management affects the size of the sweet potatoes.
Two weeks into the experiment, the bottom tier of slips started vining out, and I began wrapping them around the plant supports. By the four-week mark, the growth was substantial, showing promising results.
Stay tuned for updates on this experiment! I’ll be comparing the yield from the GreenStalk planter with my traditional raised bed method to see which one produces larger sweet potatoes. Happy gardening!
