The definitive guide on How to Grow SWEET POTATO SLIPS

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Sweet potatoes are a major root crop for most developed countries; they have fantastic flavors packed with nutrients and have become a staple for 90% of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Their origins hail from the tropical Americas; this plant is part of the morning glory (Convolvulaceae) family.

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What are sweet potato slips?

What are sweet potato slips? They are the sprouting shoots that grow out of the sweet potato tubers. Sweet potatoes do not grow from seed, and you need to produce slips from a tuber and then grow these on to propagate a sweet potato plant.

What do sweet potato slips look like?

Slips are large shoots that grow from a sweet potato tuber. They grow upright like any other vine and have elongated heart-shaped leaves along this vine. They vary from bright green to shades of purple or can be variegated.

How to grow sweet potato slips

As already mentioned, sweet potatoes are not grown from seed. They must be grown from slips. These slips originate from tubers of sweet potatoes. There are various ways to grow slips from sweet potatoes, and two of the most popular are below:

• Toothpick method (In water)
• Soil Method

How to grow sweet potato slips in water?

This method of growing sweet potatoes can be a much longer drawn-out process than the soil method. I have used both methods every year for the past ten years and ALWAYS have better and faster results with the soil method. But to ensure I provide you with all the information possible, I also include this method as it does work.

For the toothpick method, you stick 3 or 4 cocktail sticks into a sweet potato approximately halfway up the length of the tuber. Place this into a glass jar and fill it with clean tepid water until about 2 inches of the bottom of the tuber is covered in water. This is then placed on a south-facing windowsill, or better still, in a lit heated propagator such as the Vitopod, I use here.

It is important to provide good light and heat for the tuber to start to root. This will send roots into the water and eventually will sprout some shoots. These will start to grow slowly at first.

As the plant grows a larger root system, these shoots will grow quicker and become more prolific. It may become necessary to ensure water levels do not drop. You may also require to change the water intermittently to prevent the tuber from rotting.

How to grow sweet potato slips in soil

The soil method, for me, is a much more reliable way of growing sweet potato slips. For this method, fill a seed tray with compost and lay the tuber on its side, burying it between a third and half its depth. Water the compost well and place it in a warm south-facing windowsill or propagator.

Providing bottom heat with this method will speed up results. Although you will not see the root system being created due to the compost, it will grow much quicker than with the toothpick method. Keep the soil moist, allowing the shoots to grow to around 6 inches high. Like the toothpick method, the sweet potato tuber becomes more prolific as the root system grows.

What to do with the sweet potato slips as they grow?

With both the methods above, it is important to remove the slips from the potato, this has a few benefits for the potato. It allows it to keep producing new slips and prevents the potato from becoming exhausted. 

Remove slips from the potato when they reach a size of around 6 inches high. Simply snap them from the point where they join to the tuber. DO NOT CUT the slips, they must be torn from the tuber.

This will leave a little heel on the slip. Simply place these into a glass of water to start to root. Over about 7-10 days, a root system appears. This is when you can pot them up like any other seed start.

Do sweet potato slips need to be rooted before planting?

Alternatively, you could skip this process and pot up immediately after breaking them off the mother tuber. I prefer to see them rooting before potting them up. It allows me to know a good root system is being formed before using resources and time on a plant that might not make it.

Is it worth using rooting hormone for sweet potato slips?

Unlike many other cuttings, sweet potato slips do not require a rooting hormone. They readily root along the length of their vine at each nodule. You can create a much larger root system with very long slips by removing their leaves and burying the stem on its side. This will root from each junction node.

Water and feeding

Carry on raising the plants watering and feeding as required. Use a high nitrogen feed to start with, something like a tomato feed or seaweed feed would be an idea later switching to a high nitrogen, potassium and calcium feed. This will help when forming its tubers.

When to plant sweet potato slips into the final growing site?

Move the slips from one size pot to the next and protect them from frosts. Keep moving on until the last frost date has passed then, you can plant into their final growing areas. Depending on where you live will depend on the way you need to grow your sweet potatoes. They prefer very warm growing conditions.

What growing methods are the for sweet potato slips?

Final growing areas may be the ground in warmer climates, but if you live in areas that don’t see crazy heat like the UK, you may wish to consider growing in a greenhouse or high tunnel. The three options you have are:

• Growing in the ground
• Growing in raised beds
• Growing in containers

Growing in the ground

As mentioned above, to grow outside in the ground, you need the tropical heat of America or Australia. This will provide ideal conditions to be able to grow in the ground. In colder climates, tuber formation will be sparse, and the tubers that do form will be very small with no bulk.

Growing in raised beds.

In colder climates, this is a good idea. Providing it is undercover as this not only provides the space required for the vines to sprawl and grow but also the soil in the raised bed warms much faster than the ground. Therefore, you can start your crop earlier, giving them a longer growing season.

Growing in containers

Again, for colder climates, this is a good idea. I use 30-liter tree containers with handles to grow mine. These are ideal as they are black, the vines are required to take up the nutrients as the root zone is constricted, and vines can be trained up a trellis which helps to save valuable space in a greenhouse or high tunnel.  

So now we have a good idea of what we need to grow sweet potato slips at home and how to grow them throughout the season. Let’s take a look at some of the details.

Check out my video below to see all this in action and get more tips and tricks.

When to start sweet potato slips indoors

The earlier you can start to produce sweet potatoes, the better. Aim for around three months before your first frost date if you live in a cooler climate. I start mine at the beginning of February. This allows me to get good-sized plants by May, which is the last frost date, and get sufficient quantities of slips to produce the desired crops I am after.

Living in the UK means I would have to start early, but the list below may help you better decide when to sow yours

When to start sweet potato slips in your country or zone? From zone 7a, you could wait until later in the year as frost dates are relatively soon in the growing year.

Zone 2a / 2b	Feb 28th
Zone 3a / 3b	Feb 20th
Zone 4a / 4b	Feb 1st
Zone 5a / 5b	Jan 29th
Zone 6a / 6b	Jan 26thth
Zone 7a / 7b	Jan 14th
Zone 8a / 8b	Dec 18th
Zone 9a / 9b	Nov 22nd
UK South	Feb 14th
UK North	March 1st

Zones 7, 8 and 9 could get away with not planting so early as their last frost date is early enough in the growing season to catch up and put the slips straight out to the growing spaces.

When are sweet potato slips ready to plant

You can put slips into their containers as soon as a root system appears. Keep them warm and under lights until it is warm enough to transplant them into their final growing spaces. This could be sped up if your greenhouse or high tunnel is heated.

How many sweet potato slips per container?

As I mentioned above, I use 30-liter containers. 1 slip per container would be an ideal amount to use. Placing more in a container could affect the crop.

How many sweet potato slips per square foot?

When you only have a square foot of space, you need to plant just one sweet potato slip per square foot. An 8 x 4 bed could hold 32 slips. However. This rule can be broken the deeper the bed, pushing it to around 9” per plant due to the volume.

How many sweet potatoes slip per grow bag?

Grow bags are usually around 3 ft x 1 ft, and therefore it’s possible to grow 3 per bag; however, due to the depth of the soil I would consider growing just 2 per grow bag.

When to harvest sweet potato slips?

The longer you can leave it to harvest your sweet potatoes, the better. However, typically this takes around four months for a good crop. If you live in cooler climates, grow until the foliage dies. The leaves will turn yellow like normal potatoes. If growing indoors in a greenhouse, you can leave them in the ground, but ensure you harvest before the first frost.

Why grow your sweet potato slips?

Sweet potato slips are expensive to buy. Typical pricing in the UK is around £2.50 per slip, while in the USA, they are less costly and can purchase for around $1.75 per slip. In Australia, the price is approximately 6.95 per slip.

Growing your slips can save you a lot of money. It allows you also to grow whatever varieties you wish rather than being tied to what is available. One other added benefit is you get to start your slips off when you are ready and not when you are told to be ready by the plant distributors.

Where to buy sweet potato slips?

You can purchase them online on many websites if you decide you would rather buy sweet potato slips overgrowing your own. Garden centers and big box stores will also offer them for sale.

If you would like to purchase sweet potatoes to create your slips, you can use store-bought sweet potatoes, provided they are organic. Avoid using those that are not organic, as these will have been sprayed with a sprout inhibitor. Consider other gardeners or gardening groups, as these can be a great way to source and swap varieties that you may not be able to get commercially.

Can you eat sweet potato slips?

The great thing about sweet potato slips is that even the foliage is edible. It’s great to be used raw in a salad, in a stir-fry, or as an ingredient in other dishes. They can be prepared much like spinach but, like most greens, can be somewhat bitter.

What to do if your sweet potato has roots but no slips?

This usually happens when you are using the toothpick and water method. To get the potato to produce slips, you need to remove the potato from the water and plant it in the soil, leaving the surface of the potato above the soil. Within a week, you should start to see the first slips starting to form.

How long do sweet potato slips take to grow?

Usually, you will see roots and slips starting to grow from the tuber within 2 to 3 weeks. It can be sooner, but sometimes it takes this time for the potato to realize it has ideal conditions to start growing.

How to store sweet potato slips before planting?

As mentioned above, slips must be potted on and kept above 15˚C or 59˚F in good light until they are planted into their final growing space. Soil should be kept damp but not sodden.

How to harvest and store sweet potatoes

Simply dig your potatoes out of the ground or container when the foliage has turned yellow. It is ok to leave them in the ground but remove this foliage. They must be harvested before the first frost. When harvesting, leave the tubers on the soil surface in the sunshine for a few hours to cure.

Once they completely cure, you can store them the same as potatoes. Although I have not made a video for storing sweet potatoes, the video below shows many ways to cure and store normal potatoes. These methods will allow you to keep your potatoes long-term throughout winter.

Varieties of sweet potato to grow at home

So now we know all there is to grow sweet potato slips at home. Now, what varieties are there that you could grow? Below are some of the varieties available for gardeners like us to grow at home.

List of sweet potato varieties

Acadian	Gold Rush
All Gold	Golden Belle
Americana	Gold Mar
Apache	Grand Asia
Australian Canner	Hannah Sweet
Ayamurasaki	Hayman White
Baker	HeartGold
Beaureguard	Herandez
Bonara	HiDry
Campeon	Hoolehugold
Canbake	Hoolehured
Caro-Gold	Jersey Red
Carolina Bunch	Jersey Yellow
Carolina Nugget	Jewel
Carolina Ruby	Kandee
Caromex	Kona B
Carver	Nancy Gold
Centennial	Northern Star
Chipper	Orlis
Covington	Papota
Coastal red	Pope
Copper Gold	Ranger
Cordner	Rapozer
Creole	Red Diane
Derby	Red Glow
Don Juan	Regal
Earlyport	Ruddy
Early sweet	Scarlet
Eureka	Sumor
Evangeline	Tango
Excel	Topaz
Garnet	Travis
Georgia Jet	Vardaman
Georgia Red	White Delite
White Star	Yellow Yam

With so many varieties above, you have plenty of options of flavors and colors to choose from. Simply pick your cultivar and get growing.

Conclusion

That’s it. Everything you need to know to produce sweet potato slips at home and do it without the headaches that so many people struggle with. Knowing these tips and rules should help you with getting a great harvest.

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Remember, folks, You Reap What You Sow!