Sweet potatoes have been one of our most abundant crops over the past several years of gardening in Missouri. We have grown some of them in the ground, but most of them have been grown in raised beds and containers. Knowing how to grow sweet potatoes in containers is such a wonderful skill to have. I would encourage anyone to give it a try.
And so here we go. Let’s start at the very beginning of the process of growing sweet potatoes and go all the way to the delicious end.
How to decide what variety to grow
There are many different varieties of sweet potatoes. Our favorites so far are Murasaki, Mahon Yam, Azure Purple, and Beauregard. Murasaki sweet potatoes are cream colored inside, very sweet, dense, and non-stringy. They are great for fries and baking. Mahon Yam sweet potatoes have different leaves than other plants, but they are a sweet potato non the less. They are also sweet, non-stringy and great for any recipe. Azure Purple are beautifully colored, vigorous growers that get sweeter with age, but are a bit stringy, so they are best used in pies and desserts. Let me tell you, they make some beautiful pies! Beauregard sweet potatoes are some of the biggest and best for storage, and they work well in any recipe.
So when choosing what variety to grow, first decide what you want to make with your sweet potatoes, then choose accordingly.
Where to Get Sweet Potatoes For Starting Your Own plants
You can simply get organic sweet potatoes from the store or you can buy specialty varieties from various places online. Here are a few options:
How to Grow Sweet Potatoes From Your own slips
Starting your own sweet potato slips (cuttings made from the young shoots that come out of sprouting sweet potatoes) will save you money and it’s very easy to do. All you need is some old recycled containers and a window sill. No toothpicks needed! The containers should be about 2 inches deep, more or less. Cutting the top inch off of a sour cream container works great. Then just cut a one inch slice, diagonally, off the end of the sweet potato and stick the cut end down in an inch of water in your container. Refresh the water every other day or so.
Once you have sprouts about 4 – 6 inches tall, brake them off of the potato, remove any leaves on the lower 2 inches of the plant, and keep them in a cup with about 2 inches of water. Refresh the water as needed. The plants and their roots will continue to grow until you are ready to plant them.
The timing: From Starting to harvest and beyond
Here in zone 6, Missouri, I start our sweet potato slips sometime in January or February, depending on the variety. The Azure Purple and Mahon Yam sweet potatoes sprout fast, but the Beauregard and Murasaki take a long time. We plant them out in our raised beds early to mid May, after all danger of frost has passed. Mahon Yam and Beauregard are ready to harvest in September and Azure Purple and Murasaki are ready in October, before first frost and ideally before heavy fall rains that can cause splitting.
Once harvested, sweet potatoes need to be cured by sitting out in a shady area or warm room for about ten days. Ideally, the temperature should be around 80 degrees F. (27 C.). Then they can be stored in a cool, dry, dark pantry, back room, or garage that doesn’t freeze. We put ours in medal baskets lined with paper on the bottom. They last through the fall, winter, and some even into the spring of the next year.
How to grow Sweet potatoes in containers
Growing sweet potatoes in containers with success depends greatly on how much room you give them. To make sure your plants have plenty of room to do their job of creating beautiful potatoes, you will need a bed or container that is at least a foot deep and 18 inches wide per plant. They like well draining soil, but aren’t heavy feeders. A mix of 3 parts topsoil, 3 parts compost, 2 parts peat moss, and 2 parts vermiculite will do the job. They need consistent water through hot and dry times, but don’t over water.
Don’t forget to prune and eat the leaves!
That’s right. The leaves of sweet potato vines are edible. We like to cook up the young leaves just like spinach or chard, steamed, and then drained with plenty of butter and sea salt. And most of the animals on the homestead love the vines too. So we try to keep our vines pruned from about three feet away from the plants on. That way more effort is put into potato production and we get bigger potatoes. It’s a win win.
Pin it for later
Time to Get Growing!
I hope this post has inspired to grow your own sweet potatoes in containers with joy. Please share in the comments below if you have experience with growing sweet potatoes and have some tips to share.
Blessings,
Carrie
Leave a Reply