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Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Sweet Potatoes :: Week 4

Hmmm . . . I'm starting to wonder about my sweet potatoes this year. I have one that has an alright start, but the others have nothing but roots! I don't remember this happening last year.

I'll go ahead and show you the one that is earning its keep. The shoots are slowly continuing to grow, and more shoots are popping out each day.

This gives me hope for the potatoes that are pokey though. I'm hoping that any day now there will be some shoots that emerge.

I'm curious to know what yours are doing. I think that next year though, I'll try to save back a couple of my own to start my plants with instead of using store bought. Or maybe I'll just start a house plant (I hear they make great ones!) from a clipping after it gets established outside and next spring clip off some of the house plant to root and put outside. Any thoughts?

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Now -- I know NOTHING about sweet potatoes... but once I heard a lady say that you couldn't garden with store bought potatoes, because they sprayed them with a retardent... it kept them from spouting, I guess.

My potatoes I buy from ALDI must not have it on there though.. they ALWAYS sprout. But may be if you bought them as a high dollar store...LOL maybe that's the reason. I don't know... just guessing here.

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...

Jennifer-
Thanks for the imput. I had actually heard that too, but thought it was a rumor that the seed companies started since they worked great last year. :) I bet there is a lot of truth to it knowing how many chemicals get put on the food that comes from the store.

I got mine from Fareway both years, but they might have changed what they carry a bit over the year. Maybe I should have scrubbed them really good first, or opened my dusty wallet to order some from the seed company!

Anonymous said...

I bought mine at the grocery store also. Right now they are not doing much honestly. There is a couple of purple shoots on the sides of the potato, but I don't know what's going on under the soil either. I am just going to keep watering them and see how it goes.

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...

I'm going to keep going with mine,although I am confused with them this year. I have heard of others just getting them from the store to start, and that is what I did last year and it worked.

I was at the grocery store yesterday and looked at their yams. The ones they had in this time were a lot fatter than the ones they had earlier. They even had little stringy brown roots all over them. I thought to myself, "Wow! Those ones must not have had the chemicals on them." And then I went right on shopping.

DUH! I should have bought a couple to see if they worked any better. I guess my brain is full. Hopefully there will still be a couple there next week.

Anonymous said...

Well you have alot going on there so I am sure sweet potatos are small on the list;) Maybe both of ours will go through a growth spurt soon. I know my kids fly through them these days:) Have a great weekend!

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...

Well. I just peeked at my sweet potatoes today, and I noticed that one of the pokey ones just had it's first sprout pop through! So there is hope!

I also just set up the grow light that my wonderful, sweet husband brought home for me. It is over my paper pots that I planted tomatoes in, but my sweet potatoes are right beside it. I'm curious if that will speed things along.

GeonHui's Bakery said...

Oh Drat!! You'll never believe what I just did. My sweet potatoes were starting to turn the corner. Finally, all of them were sprouting. I've been putting them in the oven with just the light on to keep them a little warmer, thinking maybe that would help.

Well, I just got done making up your cut biscuits and preheated the oven. That's right...baked sweet potatoes and a melting container :(

Is it too late to start over, I don't imagine I can salvage these...

Linds

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...

Lindsie-
I bet you could still give it a try. I got mine out pretty late last year and got some potatoes. You might even be able to skip a step and still get them out on time.

It is possible to skip the vine rooting step and just put the vine slips directly into your garden. If you place a milk jug greenhouse over them when they are put out, the milk jug will help the soil around to stay moist and warm, and they should root in the garden.

I felt really bad for you, but I almost had to laugh because that sounds just like something I would do! I have melted my share of things with the oven!

Unknown said...

Oh... melted it. Drat it is right.

I'm having fun reading about what YOU ladies are doing =) I bet you could still start them with just the eyes... couldn't you? I saved milk jugs for last year with tomato plants.

Have you tilled your garden yet Bekah? Ours is SOAKING WET! Ahh... I've got seeds to put in... but it's WET!

Do you wait until you can ball up the dirt and then open your hand and it falls out? I think I read that somewhere. Today I could pick it up and it would seep out.. LOL... crazy weather... plus expecting now on Friday now. Brrr...

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...

Jennifer-
I'm not sure if you could start them with just the eyes. To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I could even locate the eyes. These sprouts just pop out of nowhere on the potato . . . so maybe just planting chunks? :)


We haven't gotten our garden tilled yet. It is definitely too wet. I think what you say about the soil is wet, although our gets tilled by a nice friend at church whenever he gets the time too - so sometimes we just work with what we have.

This year, however, I don't know where to plant my stuff. If I plant it here, we might not be around when it is ready. If I plant it on the new property, it will probably get a late start. I might just plant at both locations!

Well, better get the kiddos up. See you Friday!

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