My Sweet Potato Adventure

I had a difficult time finding simplified information about sprouting sweet potatoes. To help fill the void, I will be adding all the info I learn, including lots of photos of my sweet potatoes to help other folks with similar interests and curiosity. Here is the first of what I hope are many Sweet Potato entries. I hope there will be some that are of interest to folks. I look forward to learning more about growing sweet potatoes as I go along. I will share my research and any worthwhile links I find along the way.

Much earlier this spring I haphazardly stuck three toothpicks in each of two sweet potatoes that we purchased at the local grocery store. Resting those toothpicks on the edge of a coffee mug filled with water, I waited. I was not sure what I would see, but I waited and I watched. In a few days it began to sprout shoots, those shoots grew and got leaves and grew more. I had no idea what to do with them, no idea what I was really doing. I had no expectation, I was just playing. It grew and grew and grew! There were 5 or 6 shoots growing from each potato, getting longer and longer and developing lovely folliage, the roots the had grown out of the bottom of the potato (that part submerged in water) iand nearly filled the cups, leaving little space for water. Now I was watering them twice a daybecause they were drying out quickly. I asked online for advice about what to do with these new plants but did not clearly understand what folks were instructing. I was told to simply pull off the shoots and put them in water. I was totally unsure of myself and afraid if I did that they would just break and I would kill what I had begun.

Time passed, and the leaves on the long and slender stems began to turn brown and shrivel up. Once again I turned to the internet for help, this time I expressed my complete ignorance regarding these potatoes and how to manage them, I asked for specific, very simple instructions. I was told to firmly grip the sprouts close to the potato and snap them off. Once free of the potato they were to be placed in water. I was apprehensive but, I steeled myself and "just did it". Here is what they looked like 5 days later!

Sprouting Sweet Potato Starts

Here are the roots, a little closer. Impressive growth for 5 days in water.

I did lose a few more leaves to the browning phenomenon, but clearly I have plenty of root development and the leaves that survive seem vital. I hope to get these planted in soil within the next week. It will be interesting to see how many potatoes we get from the plants.

Just for fun, because after all, this was just a lark to begin with, I stuck the potatoes back into the water to see what might happen, now that the shoots were all broken off. Surprisingly, one of the potatoes is beginning to grow some new shoots again!

A Second Crop Of Shoots?

I will try and post regular follow ups about my sweet potatoes. Including the planting, the growing season, and of course the harvest, if and when it happens. I don't have places to grow more potatoes but, I am just so amaized at the tenacity of this little potato, I can't help but be curious to learn what it can and will do. Stay tuned! I intend to follow up on this adventure.