A month ago I started some sweet potatoes slips.
You're bored already aren't you?
That's O.K. I know that only about 5 of you out there care about growing sweet potatoes but since you're the 5 smartest, prettiest, handsomest, most charming ones out there I'll continue to write these sweet potato updates.
Also I'm obsessed with sweet potatoes and growing them. Plus it's my blog, so there's that.
A month ago I decided it was time to start trying to force my sweet potatoes into making sweet potato slips. But my sweet potatoes weren't viable because I had let them get too cold in my mud room over the winter. So I bought some from the grocery store and hoped for the best. They rooted right away.
So a month ago my sweet potato experiment looked like this ...
A few little roots started to sprout out immediately.
Now a month later my sweet potato slip experiment (with a store bought sweet potato) looks like this.
That's pretty impressive.
When slips get to be this size it's time to pull them off.
Just grab the base of the slip and twist it off.
I just realized I haven't been particularly funny or entertaining yet.
No wonder you don't like these sweet potato posts.
After you've pinched off the slips you just put them in a glass with some water in it so the slips can form roots. If your sweet potatoes form their slips at the same time they can be planted outside (when it's really warm out and the soil is warm) you can plant them right in the soil without having any roots on them at all. Just pinch off the slip and put it in the dirt. It'll form it's roots there in no time.
Where I am in Zone 6b, the sweet potato slips can't be planted out until June 1st, so that means I'm going to have to deal with these sweet potato slips for 2 months. I didn't really expect them to grow this quickly.
Normally my sweet potato slips are really slow to grow, but this year I really paid attention to making sure the had the right conditions for growing. Dark and over 80 degrees for initial sprouting and light and over 80 degrees for growing slips.
Turns out if you do things right they generally work.
I should be honest with you here. Part of the reason this post is really boring isn't just because it's about sweet potatoes which you probably think are kindda boring.
It's because I'm listening to a course by Penelope Trunk on all the characteristics of various Myers Briggs personality types while I'm writing this post. I thought I could just listen to the first 5 minutes or so and then get back to my writing, but that was an hour ago and I'm OBSESSED. For something I really thought what just a load of crap, I'm amazingly sucked into it.
It's absolutely fascinating. If you missed my original post on figuring out what personality type you are, you should have a look. She talks about which personality types are the nutters, which ones are the doers, how to interact with other personality types that are the opposite of you and how you can use your understanding of other types at work to better deal with someone who you just can't seem to understand at allll.
Like I said. I've instantly become obsessed. If it can distract me from my writing AND sweet potatoes you know there's gotta be something to it.
I actually emailed Penelope to tell her how she was kind of ruining my life with how great this stuff was. A sweet potato on the other hand isn't likely to ever ruin your life.
If you want more information on the Myers Briggs types (because you're fascinated by it like me) my Friday post is going to have some really good information in it. AND it will also have something extra special.
Penelope agreed to let me share one of her video classes on my site with you. It is the only time she's ever done this, and it's exclusive to us Art of Doing Stuff folks.
The sweet potato on the other hand, is pretty much available to anyone.
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lin
ok I am confused. One post said put potato in sunny window to sprout and this post said dark and 80 degrees. Help
Tonia
I also have slips growing quickly this go around. It's good for me cause I got a late start. I've had little luck and ever year say I'm not planting anything. This year I decided to cage plant last minute. I have potatoes growing nicely. And was lucky enough to find an organic sweet with several slips budding so that helped
Tonia
Wow sorry just noticed these comment where last year /: hope your crop was good.
Karen
Ha! That's fine! Yes, the sweet potato crop last year was good! This year my sweet potato slips are reallyyyy slow to start so I managed to get 20 or so. Don't forget that sweet potatoes need a lot of heat to grow, so growing them in black pots helps or covering the soil of the bed you plant them in with black plastic a week or so before you plant them will heat up the soil and keep it warm all summer. ~ karen!
Michelle
Came here looking for an image transfer article and have learned so much more. Haven't checked in on you for a while, glad to be back. Off to submerge my sweet potato and search for that article!
Karen
Welcome back Michelle. Is this what you're looking for? https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/how-to-print-pictures-on-woodwaxed-paper-transfer/ ~ karen!
Michelle
Yes, found it! Thank you very much, Karen. Any ideas on aging wood? Thought there was something with vinegar involved?!
Michelle
Ohh.. Found a blog with this nicely explained. Let me know if you need another project and I will send you her link! Have a great day.
James
Well that explains a lot.. darn it! lol
James
I am wondering if that classifies me as one of the nutters you mentioned..
Karen
LOL. Entirely possible. ~ karen!
James
I would say making sweet potatoes from slips is very interesting. Caught my eye right away... only if I had a patch of dirt or equivalent to do something with sweet potato slips. Currently I am restricted to fermenting things like tea and rice..and teff flour.. and anything else that ferments nicely without needing patches of dirt.
I am an ENFP borderline INFP.. I don't know if that means anything or not.
Kateswist
Here is my sweet potato vine that has been growing in my office for at least three years. Its even vining into the plant hanging next to it.
Coleen
You think there is no difference between "test" and " questionnaire"?
More superficial than I can deal with.
You have pretty much missed the point of MBTI if you think it comes down to being upset over "one word".
You are right about one thing. No place for me
Karen
And yet you're still here. ~ karen!
Anne
I live on Vancouver Island, the warm part, and wonder, is it too late to start this process? I love sweet potatoes and if it's as much fun to dig them as it is to dig Irish potatoes, I'm in. The yearly treasure hunt!
Also, just a small suggestion. Sometimes it would be helpful to be able to link the comments with the geographical source. The ACRE of sweet potatoes did make me think the author was from the southern US.
Love your blog.
Karen
Hi Anne. You should be fine to start some sweet potatoes now. Just do like I explained in my earlier post on it. Keep them in a dark, very warm cupboard until they start to show sprouts, then bring them out and let them grow. :) ~ karen!
Teresa Jennings Richardson
As a kid, we always had a huge garden (It had to feed the 7 of us plus all the company we had as ours was the gathering place for friends and family--probably because we always had that great homegrown food.) Anyway, our sweet potato patch was about an acre in size and placed away from the rest of the garden. Daddy always bought the sweet potato slips in bundles of 100. I often wondered about how they were created--did one take a long vine, cut it into shorter pieces and stick them in water to root? But it didn't worry me enough to try. So I just loved the little lesson today. Mama always had a beautiful potato vine growing on the kitchen window sill. I can't imagine why we didn't grow our own slips--Maybe we never had an potatoes left over at the end of the season. I just might grow me some slips and have a small sweet potato patch for myself
Karen
Hi Teresa! Apparently up until fairly recently the process to grow sweet potato slips was kind of a secret! So it could just be he wasn't exactly sure how to do it successfully. Plus ... an ACRE of sweet potato slips??!! That's a LOT of slips to grow, lol. ~ karen!
Sally
Last year I had a sweet potato spontaneously grow in my kitchen so I put it in a jar with water and documented its growth on facebook. Eventually potted it, because I live in an apartment, and I was the prettiest plant I had. Never got flowers and don't know about baby sweet potatoes I never checked the pot after die off. I think I will do it again this year.
Karen
You probably did get mini sweet potatoes Sally! ~ karen!
Mindy
And now I can see Cynthia's comment, so that answers that.
Cynthia
Damn. I was hoping one of us was drunk! ;)
Karen
No, no. That doesn't answer that. She thought you were talking about sweet potatoes both times you mentioned potatoes. That's what I was confused about drunkie. You're right that you cut regular potatoes into "chits" or chunks and plant them deep underground. Sweet potatoes are grown entirely differently than regular potatoes. Sweet potatoes are grown from those vines that you grow then break off the plants. They're hilariously self sufficient those vines. When you order them through the mail they just throw them in a baggie and stick them in the mail. They'll be mailed clean across the country, arrive half dead, but you put them in the ground and they instantly start growing. A regular potato would never be so kind. Back to your hooch. ~ karen!
Cynthia
My ESFJ self is crushed because I was wrong. My farmer ancestors are also rolling in their graves. They grew corn though...sweet potatoes were too fancy for them.
Karen
It is one of the more fanciful vegetables. Sweet potatoes would never be friends with corn. Corn would be friends with ... cabbage I think. ~ karen!
Mindy
Soooo, why do pull the slips off the sweet potato, opposed to cutting chunks on regular potatoes to plant? Which I'm growing for the first time this year, by the way.
Karen
Say again? ~ karen!
Cynthia
An ESFJ here...I think I can interpret Mindy's comment. Mindy, I imagine that you could plant the eye of a sweet potato and it would grow but they need a long growing time and are very temperature sensitive compared to regular potatoes. Maybe if you lived in the west or south (US) you could sow them directly in the ground. In the north though, starting the slips inside gives them a head start which gives you sweet potatoes by the fall chill.
Also, Penelope Trunk? This IS the best blog ever.
Mindy
Apparently I'm drunk. That sorta came out incorrectly. Let's use a russet as an example. Would you do the same thing? I always thought you just whacked chunks off wherever there was an eye, and then planted that. Are sweet potatoes different, or is this just another way of doing potatoes in general?
N
I love the sweet potato info, does that make me pretty and charming?
I shoved some sweet potato slips (that accidentally sprouted in my pantry) into a pot of soil and they are growing wonderfully.
Also love the personality testing. I'm ESTJ.
sj
Last fall I harvested the seeds from a couple of the white baby boo pumpkins and kept them in an envelope in the crisper bin in the fridge. I'd never done anything like that before. I took some out a few days ago and placed in a jar with a wet paper towel, and they've sprouted!!! So excited. Except, I live in a condo and nowhere to plant them. Bummer.
Elysa A.
I had a sweet potato last year that had sprouted, so for kicks I just plopped it whole into a hole in my garden and forgot about it. Right before we had a freeze hubby and I decided to dig around and see if we got anything. To our surprise we dug up about 3-4 pounds of usable potatoes. Here is a photo of our harvest. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204398918469629&l=d8c04930ed
Bonnie
I am such a fan of yours that I might try to change my Myers-Briggs type. Not really. My mother is a J and she is way too critical. Not so much of me, but of everyone on TV. Too negative. You don't seem so critical, so maybe one can be a J without the negativity. See, I am so not a J that I cannot even judge Js.
About the sweet potatoes--A neighbor just gave me a greenhouse! It is about an 8x8 octagon (of course) with PVC pipe frame and some kind of cover. He also gave me a set of shelves and 8 lights. He just didn't want it any more. I am so excited! I am also surprised that you don't have a greenhouse in which you could start all of your plants ahead of planting and even keep some going all year. I am sure that a woman who built a wonderful chicken coup could make a greenhouse. Even a J.