Are you looking for a garden crop that is nutritious and indulgent? Then sweet potatoes can be the perfect answer for you that can add taste to your food.
In a clean-eating household, these sweet and tasty root tubers named sweet potatoes are like dessert, even without the added brown sugar. At breakfast, lunch, and dinner, this easily stored warm-season edible fruit is delicious and versatile.
But what about making a desert of your homegrown sweet potatoes? It can add extra sweetness to your desert.
But don’t you have a proper guide to growing it in your garden?
Nothing to worry about. We got your back. We have created the growing and caring guide of sweet potatoes that can help you to grow them and achieve your gardening goals.
So stick to the article below to find out how to grow and care for sweet potatoes?
Plant overview
Sweet potatoes are a warm-weather crop that grows worldwide, from tropical regions to temperate climates. However, they are native to tropical regions.
The flesh of the sweet potatoes is often classified as either moist or dry. Most varieties of sweet potatoes named yams are generally the orange types that are more popular among home gardeners, especially the variety of Centennial and Georgia Jet.
Sweet potatoes are also remarkably very nutritious and versatile in which each fleshy root is rich in vitamins A and C, along with many important minerals. Click To TweetSweet potatoes are also remarkably very nutritious and versatile in which each fleshy root is rich in vitamins A and C, along with many important minerals. Apart from this, they are low on the glycemic index, and thus they can be consumed, in moderation, by those with diabetes. So it is a popular fruit among diabetic people that offers them nutrition along with taste.
These fruits are often used as raw, boiled, or baked, in soups, casseroles, desserts, bread, or stirred. Despite its name that contains potatoes, the sweet potato is not a potato at all. This tasty root vegetable belongs to the family of Ipomoea the same genus as the popular flowering climber ‘Morning Glory.
This tropical fruit needs at least four months of warm weather and warm soil. Besides, these fruits are drought- and heat-tolerant and have few pests or diseases that add an advantage to planting them in the garden.
Although sweet potatoes are traditionally more of a Southern crop, there are many short-season varieties of sweet potato today that can be used to grow. These varieties even grow in the North regions when grown in sandy soil or raised beds that are mulched with black plastic to keep the soil warm.
So let’s have an eye on the popular varieties of sweet potatoes.
Varieties of sweet potatoes
Beauregard
Beauregard is the popular commercial variety of sweet potatoes that produces a potato with pale reddish skin and dark orange flesh. The fruit takes approximately days to mature.
Patriot
Patriot is another variety of sweet potatoes. The outstanding pest resistance properties of this variety make it a popular choice for organic gardens. These sweet potatoes have copper skin and orange flesh.
Bush Porto Rico
Bush Porto Rico is a compact vine of sweet potatoes that yields a potato with copper skin and orange flesh after 110 days. This variety yields bigger fruits. so this variety is a good choice for smaller gardeners.
Centennial
This cultivar of sweet potatoes offers good disease resistance. This variety is relatively quicker to mature than other varieties that take on average about 90 days to mature.
Georgia Jet
Georgia Jet is another fast-maturing variety of sweet potatoes like Centennial That takes 90days to mature. This variety is prized for its reddish skin and orange flesh.
Sweet potatoes grow well in a warm environment. So plant the sweet potatoes when the environment is slightly warm and moist. So the best time to plant it is after one month of spring frost. Click To TweetHow to grow sweet potatoes?
Like many other plants, sweet potatoes are not grown from seeds or roots. These root tubers grow from slips. Slip refers to the eye of the sweet potato that has sprouted on it or shoots grown from a mature sweet potato.
Sweet potatoes grow well in a warm environment. So plant the sweet potatoes when the environment is slightly warm and moist. So the best time to plant it is after one month of spring frost.
Following is a detailed guide to growing sweet potatoes.
- In the beginning, you might need a tuber to grow sweet potatoes from it.
- Put the tuber of the sweet potato in a jar and fill the jar until it gets completely filled. Put the jar in a sunny place until it starts sprouting.
- Once the tuber starts sprouting, separate the sprouts from each other. To separate the sprouts, twist off each sprout from the sweet potatoes carefully.
- Put each sprout in a bowl and fill it with water.
- You can notice that the roots will start emerging from the bottom of each sprouting after a few days. When the roots become one inch long, they are ready to plant.
- Besides all the above procedures, you can also purchase slips from markets and plant it directly.
- Once the roots become ready to plant, prepare the soil as needed. Don’t compress the soil too heavily.
- Plant the roots by making a hole in the soil. Put the roots in them and pat the soil around it.
- Water the plant thoroughly and let the plant grow.
How to care for sweet potatoes?
Sweet potatoes are very easy to take care of. The caring guide of sweet potatoes includes
Light
Being a tropical plant, sweet potatoes prefer full sun. However, they also need some afternoon shade during the hot and dry regions. So while planting your sweet potatoes, make sure to plant them in full sun to part shade.
Temperature
The sweet potatoes grow well in temperatures between 60 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit and require an air growing temperature of 65 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
So make sure to not plant your sweet potatoes outdoors until the temperature of the soil has warmed to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. So always choose short-season varieties if you live in the northern part of the country.
Water
Once the sweet potato plant is established, it will tolerate growing in dry soil. So it is best to keep the soil evenly moist with 1 inch of water given once a week.
So water your sweet potatoes regularly once a week. water your plants during the final three to four weeks prior to harvest to prevent the mature tubers from splitting. Always make sure to keep your plant moist, especially during dry spells.
Soil
Sweet potatoes prefer well-draining soil that is highly rich in organic matter, so they can thrive best in Sandler soil to dense clayey soil.
Fertilizer
Sweet potatoes are generally not heavy feeders, but it is often required to give them balanced nutrition, typically with proper soil preparation.
Overfeeding the plant can tend to promote the growth of foliage rather than tubers. So the best approach to adding fertilizer is to add compost to the beds before planting the sweet potatoes. Besides, you can also apply an organic liquid fertilizer to the soil prior to planting.
How to harvest sweet potatoes?
Sweet potatoes are ready to harvest when they are up to four to five months young. They are harvested by digging up the tubers when the foliage starts turning yellow.
Besides, you also can harvest the upper parts of the leaves throughout the season if you like to consume the leaves of the sweet potatoes. But make sure not to damage the plant from growing while harvesting.
Common pests and diseases in sweet potatoes
Sweet potatoes are very likely to be attacked by Weevils, Wireworms & Root-knot nematodes. These pests can puncture the stem of the plant, lay their egg, and can damage the leaves and vines. To protect your plant from these harmful pests use certified disease-resistant slips and if you grow sweet potatoes in a container, rotate the location of this plant regularly.
Besides, these plants are prone to various fungal diseases that include wilting and root rot or stem rot. To protect your plant from these diseases, you should plant healthy slips only.
Conclusion
As you read this article this far, you might have come up with the idea of how to grow and care for sweet potatoes.
Then what are you waiting for?
Plant this tropical, sweet and tasty fruit in your garden and enjoy the taste of this raw vegetable in your food.
