1 Answer

Growing Tips:

Soil: Sweet potatoes like a slightly acid soil, prefering a soil pH between 5.0 and 6.5.

What to Plant: Sweet potatoes are usually grown from slips; small rooted pieces of tuber. You can create your own slips by slicing a sweet potato in half lengthwise and placing it on a bed of damp potting soil. Cover the pieces with a few inches of soil and keep moist and warm. Small roots should develop within a few days, followed by leaves. They are ready to be lifted and planted once they’re about 4 - 8 inches tall. (About 6 weeks.) You can try growing sweet potatoes from the grocery store, but the only way to be certain you have certified disease-free roots is to buy them from a reputable seed supplier.

If you have a short winter, you can begin new slips from vine cuttings. Snip off about 6" from the tips of the vines, before frost. Place these cuttings in water. Once they develop roots, plant in soil and keep them in a sunny location until it’s time to plant them outdoors.

When to Plant (Transplanting): Plant sweet potato slips as soon as the ground has warmed and all danger of frost has passed. To give them a head start, sweet potatoes are often planted in raised rows, about 8" high. This helps the soil warm faster and keeps them well drained. If you are gardening in a cooler climate, spreading black plastic on the soil will also help it warm faster.

Spacing: Space plants about 12 - 18" apart with 3 - 4' between rows. The vines will spread and fill in, so give them plenty of room.

Feeding: Feeding sweet potatoes tends to produce just foliage. Plant in a soil high in organic matter and then leave them alone.

Tip: Don't water your sweet potatoes during the final 3-4 weeks prior to harvest, to keep the mature tubers from splitting.

Maintenance:

Sweet potatoes can be slow starters and they don’t like to compete with weeds. Keep the area clear until the top growth fills in and acts as a natural mulch.
Sweet potatoes can tolerate periods of drought, but regular watering is the best way to prevent splitting.

Thank wiki.