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Post by mjc on May 24, 2017 16:42:41 GMT -5
One thing to remember about sweet potatoes...
Depending on the variety, you have 3 (mostly) possible locations to look for the 'edible' part...as mentioned, right under the main plant. This is pretty much the ONLY location you'll find any in the 'bush' type varieties. Also the bush types are the ones that are best for container growing. The second location is mostly right under with a wider spread. This is most of newer 'commercial' vine types. The final one is 'every where'...this is what some of the old vine types that actually rooted at EVERY node that touched the ground do...so you could find them everywhere that was covered by the spreading plant.
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Post by paquebot on May 24, 2017 20:32:15 GMT -5
Has nobody here ever actually grown sweet potatoes? If they did, they would know that the edible tuber is of a portion of the root and that all other roots are below it. Those roots below that may go down 10' to 15' or more. Normal planting is in a mounded row. The soil is first tilled at least 8" and then mounded to 8" above that. Fertilizer and other nutrients are tilled into the lower 8" since the mound portion is just for the tubers to develop in.
When talking containers and sweet potatoes, the containers are half-barrels or anything else 2' to 3' deep. Anything else and they can't develop the big tap root which stores water and nutrients to feed the developing tuber portion. Another option would be perhaps a 2' container with a slightly small bottomless container on top. Rich soil below and lighter soil above.
Hardest thing about growing sweet potatoes where I live is to convince people that they can be grown. We first grew them in 1966 when the only suppliers were in Puerto Rico. Plants arrived more as slime than alive after a week but grew. Now they are in the ground 2 days after slipping 1,000 miles away. I grew 60 Covington and 15 Murasaki last year. Have also grown Beauregard, Centennial, Georgia Jet, O'Henry, and Vardaman. The later two need 2 weeks more than I can give them in a normal year. Beauregard was #1 until Covington came along.
Martin
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Post by mjc on May 24, 2017 21:03:35 GMT -5
the containers are half-barrels or anything else 2' to 3' deep. Two 5 gal buckets...one without a bottom, stacked work well, but bigger is better. The last ones I grew in a container were Vardaman. The did fairly well in the stacked buckets.
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Post by reed on May 25, 2017 3:04:01 GMT -5
Sweets grow fine here in the ground or in large containers. Larger the better I think for root production. The potato we eat is actually a root rather than a tuber. Its called a storage root not because it stores in the pantry good which it does but because it stores water and nutrients for the plant. A good part of why they are quite drought tolerant. The primary advantage for me in container growing is it keeps them up off the ground, safe from rabbits. Also you can more easily prevent the sprawling ones from rooting down and causing storage roots to form away from the main plant. I'v read you can also prevent that by trellising the vines but I'v never tried it. For my breeding project I'm growing a lot in smaller 3 gallon pots up on racks where I can more easily introduce drought stress, move if I need to and keep the flowers and seed capsules at a level easier to tend. For now I also want to restrict the space for developing large roots in an attempt to force more flowers. My root crop is in large cattle feed tubs and 55 gallon barrels cut in half. All of my know varieties are bush or semi-bush types and I like that but it was mostly coincidence that varieties known to flower more easily tend to be the more bushy ones. I have grown some tremendous sized roots over the years but never had a lot of interest because they were never very good. I found out a few years ago here on the forum it was because I wasn't curing them right. paquebot , is the flavor and cooking quality of Covington better than Beauregard or is it just that they make more uniform roots?
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Post by mjc on May 25, 2017 7:26:22 GMT -5
One more 'tip'...warm ground. Yes, the black plastic cover does help. Also containers will be warmer than in-ground...
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Post by paquebot on May 26, 2017 22:13:47 GMT -5
Reed, Beauregard and Covington are identical in taste, quality, and size. If side-by-side in a store, you would not be able to tell them apart. In fact, most of what were Beauregard in stores are now Covington. I believe that it has quickly taken over as the #1 variety grown in the Carolinas. One might ask why it is superior to Beauregard if identical. The Covington clusters are tighter and this allows the plants to be 2 or 3 inches closer. Means little to an average gardener with a dozen plants but massive to a farmer with several hundred acres. This may be just the second year that Covington has been offered to home gardeners. Even then there is a royalty fee to NC State. I've been growing it since 2012 by obtaining plants from a commercial grower in NJ. F\If you can find me on Facebook, you can see some pictures from last year.
Martin
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Post by paquebot on May 26, 2017 22:33:46 GMT -5
As for what it is that we eat, Bing states: "Its large starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are a root vegetable." That makes it both a tuber and a root, unlike a regular potato which is strictly a tuber.
Martin
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Post by steev on May 26, 2017 22:59:34 GMT -5
My south farm-neighbor is named Covington; I've no idea whether he's a tuber or a root.
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Post by paquebot on May 27, 2017 20:53:16 GMT -5
My south farm-neighbor is named Covington; I've no idea whether he's a tuber or a root. You'll have to find out if he were a stem tuber or a root tuber! Martin
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Post by steev on May 27, 2017 21:14:08 GMT -5
Are roo-tubers from Oz?
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Post by mskrieger on Jun 5, 2017 14:21:27 GMT -5
Thanks for the detail, paquebot. This is my first time growing sweets. I'll be sure to hill them. I planted O'Henry, Beauregard and All Purple. All but one 'All Purple' slip died. The rest have taken and sprouted leaves happily. Don't know if the 'All Purple' just happened to be a bad batch of slips or what but we'll what the others do. Hard to till my soil deeper than 6 to 8" because it's filled with broken pieces of schist, but apparently plants can still wiggle taproots down into it.
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Post by paquebot on Jun 5, 2017 18:51:42 GMT -5
Hilling sweet potato plants after they are growing doesn't do much good. Unlike regular potatoes which form stem tubers, sweet potatoes are root tubers. Those roots form from a central point and then grown downward. They won't form more above that point. They will, however, form more tubers along a vine if part of it becomes buried. Allowing that is not recommended as it takes energy away from the main roots.
Martin
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Post by mskrieger on Jun 6, 2017 15:02:06 GMT -5
Martin, OK then. Good to know for next time.
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Post by prairiegardens on Jun 15, 2017 17:25:25 GMT -5
Collected 20 cattle mineral tubs, waited for slips, waited, emailed for a tracking number, was told to wait a day, the next day they arrived, bundles of brown slime. CanPost lied and said I'd been notified, put in the wrong box perhaps? But discouraging to pay $40 and get slime. Put the ones with any possibility of life in water, changing it daily and looking as though three will definitely make it, a few are showing clean white root growth but none of the variety I wanted, those were. past redemption I may end up with ten out of thirty very very late plants by the time they're ready to face the world again. If I'm lucky.
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Post by mjc on Jun 15, 2017 18:13:43 GMT -5
Ouch...
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