Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Grown sweet potatoes on a pole?

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Charles Paradise <machelp@attglobal.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Grown sweet potatoes on a pole?
  • Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:11:47 -0500

Decided to coddle one of the sweet potato vines, put a circular hardware
cloth around it, fertilized it with foliar and watered with Mir-Acid soluble
fertilizer and dug in granular fertilizer. After this special attention, and
rain, the plant after only 5 days has doubled in size while others in its row
has dwindled while they have continued to be eaten by the rabbit.

I'll coddle this one vine through this August and September New England
season - if it can produce then next year I will grow sweet potato again in a
manner like pole beans are raised in New England, which is with as described
above [hardware cloth + pole]. I'll let you know Oct. 1 how its doing. I'm
encouraged by its revival and lusterous appearance but if I'd coddled it
earlier it would be much further along now. Thanks for your thoughts on
sweet potoatoes on the north and proposal to grow them on a pole.
Charlie Paradise 'too experimental' in z5 Massachusetts

>
> > I've had rabbits eat my sweet potato vines from time to time, but
> > they've never managed to do any significant damage once they really
> > take off when the weather turns hot.
>
> I've had deer take all the leaves off. Now that did do damage to the
> crop.
>
> > If you're going to be growing these things in New England it would
> > seem to me that growing season is going to be your biggest concern as
> > sweet potatoes are tropical in nature. They don't like cool weather
> > much and a light frost will kill the vines dead. There are several
> > varieties reputed to produce good tubers in ninety days.
>
> Planting in plastic mulch (to warm the soil early in the season) also
> helps in the North.
> >
> > Steele Plant Co. in Tennessee carries a nice selection of plants. May
> > be a bit too late in the season for you by now though.
>
> Much too late. Here they need to go in by early June. You might get
> away with putting them in a bit earlier under row covers.
>
> I don't know anything about growing them up a pole, though. They do
> need a lot of room, sprawled all over the ground.





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page