Sweet potato is a starchy vegetable grown in many parts of the World. They are rich sources of different vitamins and minerals required for your body.
Additionally, it promotes the health of your intestine and has cancer-fighting properties. You can consume them either in raw form or by boiling them. You can even make homemade sweet potato fries at home and enjoy eating them with your family.
The best thing is you can grow sweet potatoes easily at home. But remember, you cannot grow them just like a regular potato. If you dig a sweet potato in the soil and wait for the crop, then, unfortunately, your sweet potato will rot within a few days.
You can grow them from slips, the shoots from fully-grown sweet potatoes. The slips can grow into roots when comes in contact with soil or Water.
The best thing is you can grow sweet potatoes from the ones you purchase from the store.
The article discusses how to grow sweet potatoes from storebought. So, keep scrolling through this article to learn more about the procedures by which you can grow many sweet potatoes from a store-bought sweet potato.
What Are The Favourable Conditions For Growing Sweet Potato?
1. Light
Sweet potatoes require a good amount of sunlight for proper growth.
2. Soil
Well-drainage soil with high organic matter is good for the growth of sweet potato plants.
3. Water
Sweet potatoes can grow in dry soil. But you need to keep the moist soil for at least one inch below the soil. You need to give Water almost regularly for one week after planting. After one week, you may reduce giving Water to the sweet potato plants.
Another thing you need t remember is that you should not give Water to sweet potato plants a few weeks before harvest as it can damage sweet potatoes.
4. Temperature
Sweet potato requires 60 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit for proper growth.
5. Fertilizer
Adding fertilizer can promote the growth of the sweet potato and increase your harvest. Thatswhy you need to add fertilizer to the soil. But don’t overfertilize the soil as it can promote the growth of foliage, not tubers.
Additionally, if you plan to add organic fertilizer, add them before planting sweet potato slips in the soil.
However, if you plan to add liquid fertilizer, you can apply them after planting sweet potato slips.
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How To Grow Sweet Potato From Store Bought By Placing Directly In Soil?
Growing sweet potatoes from storebought is a relatively easy and exciting process. You must follow the procedure below for growing sweet potatoes in your garden.
1. Purchase Sweet Potato From the Store
You need to purchase fresh sweet potatoes from the grocery store or farmer’s market. You need to produce sprouts from this sweet potato. So choose the sweet potato that is firm and healthy.
2. Wash The Sweet Potato, Cut It, And Plant it In The Soil
You need to wash the sweet potato thoroughly and cut it with a knife into two large pieces. Take a container filled with a few inches of organic soil and place the cut sweet potatoes. You must leave a few inches gap in between two sweet potatoes. Now cover the sweet potato almost half with soil. Water the soil from time to time. You must keep the soil damp for better growth of sprouts.
3. Place The Container In A Warm Place
Sweet potatoes grow well in warm temperatures. It’s best to keep the container where you have placed the sweet potatoes near the window so that the sweet potatoes will receive proper sunlight.
4. Observe Sprouts
You will observe sprouts from the sweet potatoes you have placed in the container. You will see green leaves within a few weeks.
5. Remove The Slips
You will observe 6 to 8 inches of slips from the sweet potato within six to eight weeks. The slips are the shoots or stems from the sweet potato you have placed in the container.
Now it’s time to remove the slips. You will find that some slips have roots while some don’t have them. You need to remove all the slips from the sweet potato. The slips which have already developed roots need to be planted directly in the soil.
6. Place The Slip In Water
The slips which do not have roots need to be planted in Water for a few weeks so that they will develop roots.
Take a beaker or glass containing Water and place the slips which do not have roots. Keep the beaker in a sunny place so the slip will receive a good amount of sunlight.
Don’t forget to change the Water from time to time. Remember, Water gets contaminated within two to three days, which is not good for the slips. So, change the Water within two to three days if you want healthy roots to develop from the slips.
You will observe white roots developing from the slips within a few days.
7. Allow The White Root To Grow
You need to wait for at least two weeks so that the white roots in the Water will grow to almost 6 inches in length. The slips will be perfectly ready at that time to be planted in the soil.
8. Plant The Sweet Potato Slips
You can plant the sweet potatoes slips in the soil when there is no chance of frost and the soil is warm enough for proper plant growth.
Now plan the sweet potato’s slips in the soil. You need to plant the slips within 12 -18 inches. Plant the slips properly in the soil so the roots will entirely cover the soil. You can remove the lower leaves from the slips for good results.
Remember, the sweet potato slips will take up a lot of space for adequately growing in the soil. So you need to leave sufficient space between two slips.
Water the soil almost regularly on the first week after you plant the sweet potato slips on the soil. But from the second week, you can water sweet potato slips at least two to three times a week for good results.
Never allow the soil to be too dry. You will harvest sweet potatoes within three months from the slips. If you have planted a sweet potato in scorching months, then you must water regularly to increase the production of sweet potatoes from a slip.
One slip usually produces five to six pounds of sweet potatoes. So, enjoy harvesting sweet potatoes from your garden and make deciduous recipes from the harvested sweet potatoes.
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How To Grow Sweet Potato From Store Bought By Placing Directly In Water?
1. Purchase Sweet Potato From the Market
Your first duty is to purchase sweet potatoes from the market, which you can easily get from a grocery store or the farmer’s market. But always choose a sweet potato that is free from mold.
2. Cut The Sweet Potato And Place it In the Water
Now cut the sweet potato with the help of a knife into large parts. Then take two beakers filled with Water. Place one part of the sweet potato vertically in a beaker containing Water.
The Water should be at least one or two inches above the sweet potato. If you find the sweet potato is out of balance, use two to three toot picks to balance it so that it will be 2 inches above the sweet potato.
3. Place the Beaker In A Warm Place
You need to keep the beaker in a warm place in your home. The best place is near the window so that the sweet potato will receive a good amount of sunlight.
4. Change the Water
You need to change the Water within 2-3 days; otherwise, the sweet potato can rot in Water. However, if you find rotting, throw that sweet potato and start the procedure again, or you can cut only the rotten part from the sweet potato and use the rest for growing slips.
5. Observe Slips
You will observe slips or sprouts coming from the sweet potato. Allow the slips to grow for 5-6 inches.
6. Time To Remove Slips
You need to cut the slips from the sweet potato when it grows 5-6 inches. Now take a glass containing Water and put the slips in the Water. The slips will develop roots within a few days. Change the Water within a few days for healthy growth of roots.
7. Time To Plant In The Soil
You will observe white roots coming from the sweet potato slips you had placed in Water. Allow the white roots to grow for 6 inches. Once it grows 6 inches, you need to plant them in soil.
8. Plant The Sweet Potato
Sweet potatoes can grow in a wide variety of soil. But good drainage medium texture soil is good for the sweet potato.
You can plant the sweet potato slips in the soil. But try to leave at least 18 inches in between two slips. It is because the sweet potato covers a lot of space while growing.
You need to water almost regularly in the summer months. Try to keep the soil always moist for better production of sweet potatoes. You can apply good nitrogen fertilizer in the soil from time to time for good results.
You need to even weed the soil bed from time to time. Don’t dig too much otherwise; it can hamper the growth of the sweet potato roots.
9. Harvest The Sweet Potatoes
You can start harvesting the roots when you see yellow leaves in the sweet potato plant or almost 100 days after planting sweet potato slips in the soil.
Most people think that frost will not affect the sweet potato as it is insulated inside the ground. But in reality, it is different. Sweet potatoes can get black because of frostbite. So, always harvest sweet potatoes before the frost.
You need to lose the soil on the side of each sweet potato plant. Be gentle in this procedure because sweet potatoes have very soft skin, which can get damaged by gardening tools.
Some people wash the sweet potato just after harvesting the sweet potato. But we recommend you not to do it because it can rot your sweet potato. You need to handle the newly dug sweet potatoes with care.
What Should I Do After Harvesting Sweet Potato?
Sweet potatoes need to be cured after the harvest so that you can store them and use in the cold winter months.
So once you dig all the sweet potatoes, you have to shake them so that excess dust and dirt will remove. Then allow it to dry for almost 3 hours. Remember not to keep newly dug sweet potatoes outside the whole night as moisture can rot them.
Once the sweet potatoes are completely dry, you must keep them in a warm, ventilated palace for almost 15 days. This process will increase the sweetness of sweet potatoes. The skin will get hard in this process, and you will observe a color change in sweet potatoes.
Once the sweet potatoes are cured properly, you can pack them in boxes and store them in a cool dark place with higher humidity.
If the sweet potato is adequately cured, you can utilize it for almost six months.
Do Animals Love Sweet Potatoes?
Yes, animals also love to eat sweet potatoes like human beings.
Deers love to eat sweet potato plants. If you have rabbits at home, they will also love to eat and can remove the shoot entirely from the plant.
Pigs even love to eat sweet potatoes as they find them tasty. Chicken also eats sweet potatoes as they help chickens to grow bigger and stronger.
Dogs even eat sweet potatoes. But never give raw sweet potato to your pet dog as it can cause stomach upset and gastrointestinal problems. Always cook the sweet potato, remove the peel and give it to your dog.
Conclusion
We have discussed above the procedures for how to grow sweet potatoes from storebought. So, you can follow the procedures and easily grow sweet potatoes in your yard.
We thank you for reading this article and hope you like this article. If possible, share some photographs after growing sweet potatoes in your yard. We will be happy to see your pictures.
