A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Swetting My Sweet Potatos

It was brought to my attention in another posting that sweet potatos may grow completely differently than regular yellow or red potatos. Is this true?

Niave as it sounds I figured a potato is a potato is a potato. I thought it was just a different variety of the same plant. So I planted them the same way I planted my red potatos: in a stack of tires.

Does anyone know if sweet potato vines revert to root status like regular potatos plants when they are "mounded" or covered with extra soil? Should I even bother mounding my sweet potatos (by adding another tire and more dirt) or do they just produce potatos downward from the original soil line?. I've done some research on my own but there are so many conflicting opinions online.

Also, do the sweet potato vines need to be trimmed back to keep the energy focused on the roots? I've researched a little bit online and found out that sometimes if the vine is allowed to crawl along the ground it will root randomly and produce fingerling potatos that cut back on the primary crop.

I'm hopeful that someone here will have some sweet tater wisdom they can share!

You know, I too thought about mentioning this, but then considered you may have run across something I didn't know.

potatoes & sweet potatoes are related in that they're plants, but I think that's as far as it goes.

DO NOT CUT THE LEAVES!! It's the leaves that are converting the energy of the sun into sugars and starches that are eventually stored in the sweet potato.

This is my first year with sweet potatoes so I'm no expert. They will vine (mine are going like gangbusters) and they will root along the vine. I don't see anything wrong with leaving them in the tires, but don't continue to hill them up like your red potatoes. Treat the tires like a container-- my sources say they do just fine in containers. They'll probably spread out over the tire, but that's no big deal.

Are you familiar with sweet potato vine-- the purplish leafy vine that lots of people plant in their big flower pots? That's the same thing as the sweet potato we eat, just a different variety. (In fact, you can eat them, too!) If you are, that should give you an idea of how they will grow. Leaving them in your tire container would also cut down on the rooting along the vine.

But again-- I'm no expert! WOnder what others think.

I was curious and asked the question to stir the pot

We can't buy sweet potato seeds or plants here so I knew there had to be a reason, but my grandfather said that you grow them from a slip from the eye of the potato not the potato itself, he said they put toothpicks in the potato to hold it half way in water, leave the eyes sprout then plant the vine that grows from the eye.

Where's our sweet potato expert?

OK sounds good. Glad I found this out now! It wouldn't be fun to find out three tires later!

I was wondering why the sweet taters went nutso and keep overflowing the tire and vining. HAHA Now I know!

Since I can't cut them back, what do you think about putting a trellis behind the tire to help keep the vines off the ground? It's also a space issue. I don't want them crawling into my garden which is right beside them.

And Thanks Tamara!!! I'm so glad you "stirred the pot"! It's much better to stir it than to watch it burn Good thing I have you looking out for my poor garden! My veggies and I would be lost without you!

I don't know that they'd grow on a trellis, but they might. I don't recall seeing any tendrils on them that would keep them attached (like cukes or squash). Can you just wind the vines around the tires? Or maybe attach them yourself to the trellis?

Haven't seen any tendrils but it keeps trying to crawl up and through the fence behind it. So maybe if I help it wind through a trellis some, it would do okay. Might even encourage it to grow more leaves for extra potato making energy :-)