How to Plant and Harvest Sweet Potatoes #vegetable_gardening

How to Plant Sweet Potatoes:

Sweet potatoes are best grown from cuttings, which are not, in fact, rooted and technically called 'slips'. You would normally buy them via mail order from late April onwards. When they arrive, pot them immediately into small pots of multi-purpose compost. Keep the compost moist, using tepid water. Cover the pots with a clear plastic bag or place them in an unheated propagator, until they root.

Shop-bought tubers: These can be used but will be less robust cultivars ill-suited to outdoor growing. They are often treated with an anti-sprouting agent, so scrub them clean before planting.

Place tubers in moist vermiculite, perlite or sand in a warm propagator or airing cupboard to encourage sprouting.

Remove the shoots, with a sharp knife, when they are 5-7.5cm (2-3in) long and pot them into small pots of cutting compost and root them in a warm propagator. Treat cuttings from overwintered plants in the same way.

How to Harvest Sweet Potatoes:

Tubers take four to five months to mature and are best lifted once the leaves turn yellow and die back.

They rot if frozen and are hard to store, so consume sweet potatoes promptly. Lift carefully to avoid bruising.

Sweet potatoes can be boiled, roasted or cut into chips; the shoots and leaves can be cooked and used as a spinach substitute.