Sweet potatoes are a healthy addition to any meal. The plants you grow in the garden come from tubers. These tubers come from a sweet potato that you buy at the garden supply store, nursery, or online. You can purchase sweet potatoes at the grocery store, but they are often treated with an anti-rooting compound. If you do buy them at a grocery store, try to find a natural or organic store.
You will want to start this project at least three months before it’s time to plant the sweet potato tubers in your garden area. Unfortunately, not everyone can grow sweet potatoes, because they need a long growing season. The earlier you can plant sweet potatoes into your garden, the more successful you will be. Make sure that all danger of frost is past.
Choose the Right Sweet Potato
If you are buying the sweet potato at the grocery store, you’ll want to be picky. Examine the sweet potato. You’ll want to find one that has no soft or mushy places, and it has to have a number of eyes. These are little areas, round in shape, where the tubers of the sweet potato grow out. The number of tubers a sweet potato can produce depends on the number of eyes it has. Generally, one sweet potato can produce 10 to 15 sprouts to per plant. The tubers are broken off and placed in water until they root.
Prepare the Sweet Potato
Find a glass jar or other container that is a half-inch larger in diameter than the sweet potato. When half of the sweet potato extends into the jar, you should have 1.5 inches or more space between the tip of the sweet potato and the bottom of the jar. Examine your sweet potato and find the pointy end. This end goes in the glass container first.
Insert four toothpicks around the middle of the sweet potato. They will keep the sweet potato suspended in the water. Try to space the toothpicks equally apart, like the direction points on a map.
Pour water into the jar until the bottom third of the sweet potato is under water. Place the jar in a sunny window and continue to grow in this fashion for one to two months. The roots usually form in 3 to 4 days, but the leaves and stems take approximately three to four weeks. If you notice the water looking green, cloudy, or foul-smelling, change it with fresh water.
Prepare the Tubers
When the shoots or tubers are 6 to 8 inches long snap them off the potato. Insert the bottom section of the tuber into a glass. Fill the glass with water so that only the bottom third of the tuber is sitting in the water. Place the glass in a sunny window until the tubers have formed roots. Now it is time to plant them into the prepared garden.
Urban Extension Illinois: Watch Your Garden Grow
“Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening”; J.I.Rodale; 1999
“National Garden Book”; Sunset Books; 1997
