I wanted to plant sweet potatoes and even bought some from a few sources (thanks @Fusion_power ), but we got really busy and I just didn’t get around to getting the slips started (wasn’t happy about that!).
I decided to get really serious this year. I spent about 4 hours pouring through and cataloging varieties being offered from Sand Hill Preservation Center this year and I am mailing my order today for these slips:
I also ordered the 20 variety closeout special of the general assortment.
Besides trialing these for my family and me, my other goal is to be able to offer a good variety of sweet potato slips to my local customers eventually. I am hoping to report out here through out the growing season.
What are others planning in the way of sweet potatoes?
I am only growing one variety, Ted’s Red, that I obtained from Sandhill several years ago. It was a replacement for an unavailable variety. I enjoyed it (large and sweet for my area) and continue to grow it in PA.
I ordered Delaware Purple from sandhill and since I couldn’t decide on a purple fleshed variety and am only setting aside space for a few sweet potatoes this year, I also ordered the purple assortment so I would get 2 varieties to try instead of just one.
Hoping at least one of those is a winner for my family and if not well there’s always next year.
I give up this year. Last year, i had one giant one and it wasn’t great going to be focusing on my trees this year. If anyone somehow manages to get okinawan purple or the super sweet south Korean one though…i might try again
Last year I tried Murasaki. I was originally unimpressed with it (wasn’t cooking very well sliced), but when I made it into mashed potatoes it was really good. I haven’t decided if I will get them again. I want to buy my sweet potatoes, regular potatoes and sweet corn all from the same place so I don’t have to pay shipping 3 seperate times.
We are going to be growing sweet potatoes this year for the first time. One deep orange variety, and one purple fleshed/purple peeled one. I am not sure the two varieties yet since I did not make the order, and I am getting some extras that someone else bought. It should be interesting. North Carolina is a top sweet potato growing state, so they should at least grow half decently where I grow, at the worst case scenario.
I would recommend that you read the sweet potato growing information that is provided on Sand Hill Preservation Center’s website. It’s an interesting, quick and easy read.
Thank you very much for posting that. I had previously visited their site, although only very briefly. They have a lot of information which I had not previously read. The excitement that built as I read his enthusiasm at sharing his accumulated knowledge was such that I now have an interest in selecting one of their assortments to add to what I am trying.
Since I am already replying I guess that I ought to actually respond to what I was reticent to:
I like the Korean-style of sweet potatoes that I can purchase at some local, more specialized grocery stores. I was first introduced to them when my brother made a Chinese hot pot type of soup for me. These are the ones with flesh that is white when raw, and a skin that is a muted purple color. I bake with them, I add their sliced roots to soup, I mash them for pies. For years I have wanted to try growing them. I had once before tried growing our usual, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, creating my own slips and planting them out, keeping the deer off of them, keeping them from rooting whenever they touched soil. It was an enjoyable experience and it didn’t require much effort from me once I got them into the ground. Making slips indoors was a fun part of the process. While the harvest was disappointingly small I am still committed to trying them.
With these Korean sweet potatoes I’ve discovered that they don’t respond well to the slip creation method I had employed before. Last year I was able to produce vines, but with these the slips didn’t slide right out of what I had planted. This year I am trying again, but I have planted my original sweet potatoes into a bucket and will be able to add more soil, allowing the vines to root in that and then clipping them off to plant in the ground.
Glad that the information was useful and encouraging to you. Thanks for posting your experience using and growing the Korean variety. I am not only excited about growing them, but also finding different ways to use different types (dry to moist tubers).
I hesitate to call the ones I have Murasaki since I don’t know which other varieties bear a resemblance, but they look about like this unless they have been washed recently and are still wet:
(picture pulled shamelessly from the Internet)
One of the Manihi Treasure Island sweet potatoes I had from last year was sprouting so I went ahead and put it in a jar of water to start slipping. There is a Covington I just put in a jar beside it on the right at the edge of the photo.
This is sold as an ornamental but also makes good sized orange roots that are supposedly good to eat. I kept some of the roots and have yet to eat one (probably will this week), but the dark foliage and a dense bush habit make it nice to grow among the flowers in the front beds. If it tastes blah I probably won’t bother to plant these, but when things start growing it is hard to ignore them.
I still plan to get an order into Sandhill and better get on that this week or all you other folks will get all the slips!
Interestingly, when I looked for more info on the sweet potato I just mentioned it appears to be part of a line that was developed with the help of LSU. I may have to try to track down a couple more of these if they are indeed all bush type. Here is an article where someone describes tasting the various types:
That Treasure Island has beautiful leaves! Also, I just read the article that you posted and noted that Treasure Island is actually a series of sweet potatoes. Which variety are you growing?
I’m growing the one called Mahini, but I’m trying to track down some of the others. I’d really like to get the one called Tahiti, which is a purple sweet potato. They aren’t readily available, so I’ve reached out to some wholesale growers to see if I can get plugs and maybe just sell off the excess locally. The retail price is crazy anyway.
The Mahini I grew last year I grew since my mother gave me a couple from an order she had made with Burpee. I thought they were ornamental so I was surprised to find some nice roots when I pulled them in the fall. The leaves weren’t quite as intensely dark as some other ornamental sweet potato vines, so maybe they aren’t doing as well in sales which is why they are making it out into the retail market much. Since they make nice roots besides being ornamental it seems a shame if these don’t get into broader distribution.
It wasn’t until after I dug the roots that I even bothered to look into what I was actually growing, lol. Besides the leaves, the vines flowered quite heavily which is nice for ornamental use.
The biggest issue I see with the Treasure Island varieties is that because they have ornamental value, they are being sold as single potted plants. Unfortnately increases the price quite a bit as opposed to buying slips.
Yup, definitely the case. It looks like plugs would just be $1.50 or so if I can find a wholesaler to sell me some, so much more like buying slips. And of course, the fact that you can keep a root to make your own slips the next year means you can keep them going for free once you get them.
Besides the fact the foliage looks nice, my main interest in trialing more is that they are a denser growing bush type, which is less common among most varieties we currently grow.
I tried to do a little bit of research, but the only company that I could find that seems to have several of the varieties is Log House Plants and apparently you need to live on the west coast to get them.
Are there wholesalers that you know about who has them available?
And Hidden Leaf in Kalamzoo, MI seems like they will have all possibly, but when I reached out by email they asked if I had an account through some other resellers they service since the mostly don’t go direct and didn’t want to complete with any of their resellers … so they seem to more like a wholesaler to wholesalers who then distribute into retail. I haven’t gotten back to follow up but will. Their site isn’t much, but I was able to reach them by email. I didn’t try calling.
I’m interested to try the others, but I do wonder if the promise of good taste will really be there since they are being bred with two objectives which doesn’t always work out great. I did try a Mahini that I had for lunch and it was okay, probably not as good as some others I’ve had, but that was just one root and I’m not sure if would have been better earlier in storage, etc.
going to be focusing on my trees this year. If anyone somehow manages to get okinawan purple or the super sweet south Korean one though…i might try again
thank you sharq, for finding me a source 
Thanks for posting your experience using and growing the Korean variety. I am not only excited about growing them, but also finding different ways to use different types (dry to moist tubers).
