So it sounded good. The people at the nursery recommended it! They should know, right?
Maybe not.
The experiment of quartering a sweet potato and planting it has not gone well. To my Orange County reader who asked what I did, that is it, and it did not work.
It is supposed to work.
But it did not.
However, I keep telling myself that the rotting sweet potato will be excellent compost.
There are very few companies who will ship plants into California because they need special tests etc. done. But there was one. The Sand Hill Preservation Center actually carries sweet potato slips and is willing to ship to CA. So I requested a catalog and we see what happens.
What I do know is that both girls love sweet potatoes, so this is something that I really do need to figure out!
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3 comments:
Stupid question, but did you make sure that it had eyes? I've always let it sit a bit in the cupboard and the eyes started to grow before I cut it and planted it. I've also read that regular potatoes are sometimes treated to slow the growth of the eyes so maybe buying organic may help too?
I thought to look at another book I own and found this!
You can make your own slips. From "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible" by Edward C Smith
Purchase large, firm sweet potatoes about 30 to 40 days before the last frost. You can either set the sweet potatoes in sand in a warm, sunny room or greenhouse, or cut them into section and place each section in a glass of water with one half immersed and the remaining half above the water. Shoots will then rise from the cut section.
When the shoots are about 4 to 6 inches (10-15 cm) long, gently twist them from the section of potato. Collect the shoots and put them in a container of water so that only their bottom halves are immersed. Slips are ready to plant when roost appear, usually just in a few days. Don't allow the roots to get longer than a inch or two (2.5-5 cm) before planting.
Here's a webpage from the DIY channel about it too
http://tinyurl.com/35oqkg
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