anyone grow sweet potatos (not yams)

[goddess40]

We're in Wisconsin and my mom wants sweet potatoes. Maybe I can find some plants at the farmers market on Saturday?

[japple]

1. My Dad grew them for several years here in Georgia. Some

years they did great, other times they were a waste of time. I think the soil in GA has too much clay. If you have sandy, well-drained soil, you will have nice, fat. well-formed potatoes. Too much moisture and rock hard clay will make skinny, mealy potatoes. The best ones I've ever eaten were Cuban red (I think that's the name) sweet potatoes from Sand Mountain, Alabama.

[Blue Gardener]

2. Excellent information from Illinois Extension service

I didn't know sweet potatoes were related to morning glories!

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/veggies/sweetpotato1.html

[Jeanette in FL]

3. I did in North Florida

They did fantastic. Last year was the first time I tried them. I bought them started already, and planted them in the square foot gardening plan. I really didn't know what to expect so I just let them grow all season. When the first cold spell came, the leaves just withered away and they say that is when you need to dig them up.

I went out with a bucket and started digging. It was like a gold mine. The more I dug, the more I found. I ended up with 3 five gallon buckets all different sizes and shapes. They need to be cured for a couple of weeks before eating and then stored properly after that.

They are pretty easy keepers but they do like a warm soil, so until the ground is around 70 degrees or so, I would wait. They also spread like crazy, but they are worth the space.

I obviously did not get all the sweet potatoes that were in the ground because this year they started coming up again. I am just letting them go and see what happens this year. I also started my own slips from the sweet potatoes I grew last year and planted them.

I could not believe how awesome they tasted or how sweet the kitchen smelled when they were baking. You could really make a meal out them.

Good luck and have fun.

[LiberalEsto]

4. I grow them in Maryland

Just buy a couple of small sweet potatoes at the grocery store, and bury them. My soil is red clay, but I've amended it with compost, peat moss and composted manure. The sweet potato plants take up a lot of space, so don't put them close to other things. I dig them up after the first light frost and usually have plenty for Thanksgiving.

Here's a great tip I discovered for keeping sweet potatoes:

First of all, don't refrigerate sweet potatoes. That makes them spoil.

Put some unpeeled garlic bulbs in a wide bowl and lay a few sweets on top of the garlic. I've kept sweets for weeks this way on my kitchen counter. The garlic has some antibacterial/antifungal properties.

Once I saved a small sweet potato all winter and spring atop garlic bulbs -- it sprouted and I planted it when the soil was warm. I grow garlic and usually harvest enough to plait into a 6-foot-long braid.

[Kolesar]

5. Eat garlic and spread a tincture of garlic on your toes to counter foot fungus

Or so I read when I had an intractable toenail fungus. The fungus went away after 8 years, by the way. I never made the tincture, I had cut down on eating garlic because it "stayed with me".

Sorry to distract the delicious topic.