Friday, April 6, 2012

Potting Up

The sweet potato slips were looking good yesterday.

Their roots had grown quite long. If I waited anymore time I was afraid the roots would get tangled together and I wouldn't be able to separate the slips without breaking the roots. All of the slips had formed roots except one.

Which was convenient since the flat fits 12 4" pots. I have three slips of each variety. I'm expecting these to vine at some point and I'll get the slips that go into the garden from them. Sweet potatoes are usually planted late May to mid June around here. It really depends upon the weather. I was looking at one study from NH and the year it was so cold (2009 I think) they planted on June 26th. That wouldn't give them much time to grow, but they did get a harvest.

The sweet potatoes that are in water waiting to get slips are just starting to sprout this week. I might only get one sweet potato from each variety sending out slips, but one is enough and doing it with three will give me a good sense of my success to failure rating for supermarket sweet potatoes.

I also made a whole flat plus a little more of soil blocks. The flat is the smaller Asian greens. I tried direct seeding them in the circle garden which is the warmest spot. I was hoping things would be warm enough for them to grow. They are still very small. The indoor transplants that were planted three weeks later are huge. These have been in the ground for about 6 weeks. They germinated, but are slow. So I sowed a whole flat to plant up the other side. I'm wondering which side will produce first.

The other 12 blocks were for my basil. I finally started the first of my warm weather plants. Next week the tomatoes will go in. And no I still can't eat them. I hold out little hope at this point, but if I can't my townhouse mates will still appreciate them. And I have a friend who grew one of my Market Miracle transplants last year. He has a yard with very little sun. I'd say he gets from 5-6 hours in the sunniest spot. It still produced decently. Not many varieties would. So I'll grow him another this year too.

12 comments:

  1. lovely looking slips! I totally forgot to start mine I wonder if I still have time hmmmmm

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  2. They do look lovely I wish I had a bigger garden for my veggies n fruits ... maybe next year.... anywho I love following your garden blog it's great, it it gives me lots of inspiration for my own gardening

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  3. They look so good. You're going to love them! Be sure to leave lots and lots of room for vines! Thankfully the vines are quite sturdy and can be moved around a bit.

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  4. Your sweet potato slips are progressing really well. You can enjoy the vein shoots too when you harvest the tubers.

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  5. Its really looking nice and cute also. Its growth is also worth appreciating.

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  6. Ooohh..pretty! I'd love to grow sweet potatoes but I think we don't have a good climate for them here in Oregon.

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  7. This is my first attempt at sweet potatoes and I have vines going everywhere - I had a little poke around in the soil and found at least one tuber forming. I do hope there are more though - because it is a lot of vine for one miserable tuber. All might be forgiven if the tuber is particularly delicious though.

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  8. Hi! I just put a sweet potato in a jar of water a couple weeks ago. I thought when it grew something up the top I broke that off and put into a glass of water to get roots. I thought then after it had roots in the glass of water that it was ready to plant. I don't understand what you mean when you say when they vine up. Is there another step after the roots in water before I can plant them outdoors? Can you help me understand this???? Thanks. Nancy at http://cozythymecottage.blogspot.com/

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    1. I'm just making small sweet potato plants in the pots. They will start to grow vines. The vines themselves can be pinched off and be slips themselves. I can't plant for almost two months, so they can't go into the ground now. The roots in pots will be too mashed together to make sweet potatoes anyway. They will just be the source of my slips. At least that is what I'm assuming. I've never actually done this before.

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  9. Thanks Daphne! I have never grown sweet potatoes so will learn as I go. Good luck to you. Hope you get lots of sweet potatoes! Nancy at http://cozythymecottage.blogspot.com/

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  10. I am so glad your sweet potato slips rooted (but one), I was just wondering the other day how they were doing. They look very healthy and happy. I see you use canning jars to root also, love canning jars, so versatile.

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  11. I've stuck a store bought sweet potato in a jar of water and am waiting for signs of life. I'm planning to try them in large tubs of potting soil since they don't do diddly in the ground here. We shall see. Everything is an experiment; some work and some don't and I just keep on trying ;-)

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