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Post by macmex on Nov 19, 2022 19:54:48 GMT -6
It probably would be best to pot them and grow them like house plants until spring. I only recovered a root, more slender than a pencil, of Hopi, this year. I potted it up in hopes of getting it to sprout. If it sprouts, though I'll only be able to produce a few slips, come spring, I won't lose the variety.
Remember, if in doubt, put the potted roots on a heat mat to help them sprout.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Nov 20, 2022 20:05:26 GMT -6
Done. Thank you so much.
I did what you mentioned with my orange ones. Last year was from only a few slips and had plenty at harvest for a little nibbling and more slips next year.
Thank God for sweet potatoes.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 22, 2022 14:27:45 GMT -6
None of my sweet potatoes made it this year, due to drought, deer depredation, and a plague of grasshoppers, but on this day, back in 2015 things were much better. Every time this photo pops up, it makes me happy again. It's a photo of my daughter posing with a sweet potato that we grew that year. (She's the one on the right).
She has such a wonderful, fun nature that she makes everything we do together a happy time. Thank you, God, for my children.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 23, 2022 19:30:54 GMT -6
Oh man, now listen to this. This is an actual, factual tale about a sweet potato & my appetite at suppertime. When I delivered the Chicken Show trophies to june, she gifted me some sweet potatoes. I have had them in my lumber storage room which stays between 50° & 60° during the winter. She took the time to identify most every sweet potato in the box, so I fetched one of them for my supper. I picked up one that was about the right size and carried it to the kitchen before revealing to myself which variety it was.
It was a Red Wine Velvet sweet potato. I was happy that I knew the variety, I would get to bake it and butter it, then see what all the fuss is about. So that's just what I did.
Well now I know what the fuss has been all about. That baked Red Wine Velvet sweet potato was fit for a king. Outstanding!
I have several other varieties to test, but it's going to be tough for them to beat out the RWV, the bar has been raised extremely high tonight...
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Dec 28, 2022 4:05:01 GMT -6
Thanks, George! I put my white sweet potatoes in pots on top the frig. The lights in the kitchen are very bright. They are already sprouting. I suppose I’ll pot all the individual slips as they come in.
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Post by macmex on Dec 28, 2022 6:53:45 GMT -6
Woodeye, I missed your post until now. Yes, Red Wine Velvet is a special sweet potato variety. It is my wife's absolute favorite and to rub it in a bit, it also did better in our terrible 2022 growing season than any other variety in my line up. Do, however, keep an open mind. Some of the others June provided are likely to be excellent and quite different.
Frosty, I have started slips this early, but only when the only roots I had on hand were ready to shrivel up and die. On the other hand, I have kept some growing as plants, straight through the fall, winter and spring; because I had no roots at harvest time. It all works. You have the option of pulling the slips and potting them individually, if you have space. Another option is to just let the plants grow and get long. It's very easy to cut the vines up into 8" sections at or near planting time, and make a lot of slips/cut at that time.
For regular slip production I aim to bed my sweet potatoes (for slips) no earlier than the middle of March. I have started slips the beginning of May and had slips ready for planting by the end of May. Most varieties are slow to sprout and grow until they have some genuine warmth. Having said that, I recognize that some varieties are harvested, already sprouting, as if to start producing new plants, but these varieties generally keep well. That characteristic doesn't seem to affect storage.
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Post by woodeye on Dec 29, 2022 19:51:58 GMT -6
macmex, yes I'll definitely keep an open mind about sweet potato varieties. I love them all, I am certain of that. I think I have about 4 or 5 different varieties that I am saving back to attempt to grow slips. I've never grown slips for planting, but I look forward to giving it a try...
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Post by macmex on Dec 30, 2022 7:41:35 GMT -6
I can't remember off the top of my head, but I bet we have a thread on starting slips. You can also check over on The Sweet Potato Network, which I have been neglecting lately. That's where I first ran into June. She's a major contributor there.
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Post by woodeye on Dec 30, 2022 8:39:39 GMT -6
I will definitely check out the method for starting slips, I look forward to trying it.
I have a question about planting the slips as a second crop. I want lots of different crops in my garden spot, so to make room for everything I won't have room for areas that grow one crop, then remain bare for the rest of the year. I was hoping that I could plant the sweet potato slips in the same area that I have pulled all the Candy onions, which will be harvested by June 15. I have read here on the forum that you do not recommend fertilizing sweet potatoes, macmex. So my question is, would the leftover fertilizer in the ground that was used to grow the onions interfere with growing the sweet potatoes that are planted after the onions are all harvested?
I use 10-20-10 fertilizer when I plant onion plants, but then after they start growing well, I use additional fertilizer such as 21-0-0 every 2 weeks to help the tops grow bigger and produce more blades. It's said that every blade of onion tops represents a ring of the onion bulb, so the more blades and bigger blades there are will mean bigger onions. If the additional fertilizing would inhibit the growth of the sweet potatoes which are planted later, I could opt to not use extra fertilizer throughout the onion growing season, but still use the 10-20-10 fertilizer at onion planting time.
Any thoughts you may have on this would be much appreciated...
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