My wife loves sweet potatoes. I mean the dark orange variety of ipomoea batatas Americans refer to as yams. And of course they’re an important part of our Thanksgiving Dinner, even if we’re having it in Buckinghamshire, just outside London.
We had a few sweet potatoes we bought from Waitrose in our fruit and vegetable bowl long enough to develop tiny purple sprouts, which gave me the idea of growing my own. Online advice was to allow the tuber to “chit” until those little purple sprouts were an inch long. So I waited – and waited. What you’re hoping for are splits, the purple, leafy part with roots attached which are then planted out.
After weeks I had one leafy chit about half an inch long and looked for more online advice which suggested I suspend the tubers directly in water using toothpicks – the way you did when you tried to grow an avocado plant when you were eight. The results were spectacular and immediate. After a week with the tubers in water, I’ve just twisted off my first split, and also cut a little chunk of sweet potato with a tiny leaf and root system from another one and planted both up. When they’ve come on a bit and I’ve got more splits potted I plan to plant them in a grow bag at the bottom of my two foot deep “greenhouse”. Fingers crossed.
I got online information from –
http://blog.gardening-tools-direct.co.uk/2010/02/growing-sweet-potatoes-in-england.html
http://www.downsizer.net/Projects/Growing_food/Growing_Sweet_Potatoes/
http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Grow-Your-Own/Veg-A-to-Z/Sweet-potato
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