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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Certified Organic Sweet Potato slip source

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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Certified Organic Sweet Potato slip source
  • Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:56:42 -0500

You don't even need the potting soil. You can grow them just in plain water; they'll still produce a lot of slips. Slip off the slips, or cut them off, and put the slips themselves in plain water, and they'll root. As they grow longer, you can cut the slips in half, put the top half in water, and that will also grow roots.

Some varieties produce a lot more slips than others.

Make sure you have a variety suited for your area. Miscellanous grocery store sweet potatoes are likely to be long season, for instance, and won't produce in the north. I'd start with slips of a known variety; then grow your own the next year from your crop. If you start getting poorer crops, or if you have a crop that didn't mature well (as can happen in a bad year up here, especially if you couldn't plant them early enough), then buy slips again; it's possible to wind up with a disease buildup, or a lack of vigor due to immaturity, that can significantly reduce your yield. But you should be able to grow your own most years.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale


On Jan 21, 2010, at 10:46 PM, Marie Kamphefner wrote:

Regards to the list:

I grow my own slips. I get organic sweet potatoes, bury them in a container
of organic potting soil, keep them warm and watered and they grow like
crazy. You just pull them carefully and put in pots or just plant them out
bare root when it's warm enough.

Marie in Missouri






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