GU: Sweet Potatoes

GU: Sweet Potatoes

[GU = Garden Update] This is a sweet potato update. Because I posted how I plant sweet potatoes, it seems appropriate that I should post an update on their progress. If you want to see the first post, it is here: Planting Sweet Potatoes. The sweet potatoes have been in the ground for 27 days. The image shows how they have grown.

The plant in the middle died a few days after planting. Later, after the other plants started growing well, I cut a 10-12 inch piece off the end of one of the vines. I planted the cutting in the middle hole. I covered it with a planter for around 3 days. It rooted and it is growing now.

As you can see, sweet potatoes grow along the ground like vines. They are in the morning glory family and have similar heart-shaped leaves.

The black lined plastic has suppressed weed growth. If I had left the plastic clear, weeds would have grown under the plastic. It takes black plastic to suppress weed growth.

Overall, the plants seem to be doing well enough. I haven't grown sweet potatoes enough to know if they are doing below average, average, or better than average. I'll update one last time to show what nine plants produced. That will be sometime in October or before we have frost in this area.