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Old 18-03-2004, 07:43 PM
Christopher Hamel
 
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Default Sweet potato starting

"Ray Drouillard" wrote in message ...
"Allan Matthews" wrote in message
...
I want to plant a few sweet potato plants this year. I understand
that I have to start them from shoots. How far in advance do I have
to start with the sweet potato to get the shoots? Can I plant cut
sweet potatos instead, as you would plant irish potatos?Thanks for any
input.


I had some sweet potatoes that had started to sprout, so I cut the
sprouts out (along with a fairly generous amount of potato), put them in
some water to keep them alive until after frost, and planted them. They
grew fine, and produced a nice crop -- which is really amazing because I
live in Michigan.

I recall reading that you aren't supposed to cut up the potatoes before
planting them, but I guess the potatoes didn't read that article :-)

I had a similar experience, for what it's worth. I had never planted
sweet potatoes and knew virtually nothing of the plant, but I had a
potato from the supermarket that was sprouting. I cut it up, planted
the eyes, and ended up with a pretty nice plant. I only got one
potato out of it all, but there were several reasons for that (planted
very late in the season, put the vines on a trellis, so they didn't
root, etc).
Ray