Last year was a bust for me, but I’m not going to give up! I am going to be more reasonable about how much I am planting this year. Here’s my order for this year:
Also, I would recommend that anyone who is interested in growing sweet potatoes read the sweet potato growing information that is provided on Sand Hill Preservation Center’s website, if you have not already done so. It’s an interesting, quick and easy read.
https://www.sandhillpreservation.com/sweet-potato-growing-information
FarmGirl that’s a lot of different types of sweet potatoes. I’m curious as to what you’re doing. Is this a test to see which one you like the best? I have grown a few sweet potatoes before and I’m considering growing 1 or 2 types again this year.
My purpose is two fold. I want to see which varieties do well in my area and what works good for different dishes. Ideally, I’d have good varieties for baking and some for air frying (french fries). Eventually, I would also like to start selling slips since they are hard to find locally.
After tasting a bunch I’m trying to grow out slips from Evangeline, Okinawa, what i think is white bonita (from whole foods), and a “korean” sweet potato from hmart.
Considering also doing a 2nd japanese sweet potato…. not sure.
We’re trying to find varieties we like for the leaves (tried them last year and were convinced they make for a good summer green) and hoping to find some we like the roots better for our tastes too so we’re trying several this year too:
Just sent our order in to Sandhill for the year ourselves and planning to try:
Dingus pink/purple
Kuwahi
And their 3 general variety special because we figure when trying different varieties why not enjoy a surprise.
I’ll also plan to plant a couple of purple fleshed varieties we grew last year that we enjoyed, and one Delaware Purple to give it a second chance.
Feels like I’m bordering on biting off too much to chew, but they were pretty happy with neglect last year so gonna give it a go and maybe just assume I’ll be handing neighbors out sweet potatoes come October to limit how many I need to store myself.
Did it fail to produce many good roots? You mention enjoying the leaves and I believe someone else said that they felt the quality/taste varied a lot between varieties and Delaware Purple was their favorite for edible foliage.
Yeah that’s why we tried it initially but mine seemed to be stunted (described as vigorous vines but mine, while not bush sized, were no where close to as vigorous as the Oklahoma Purple and the Nam Hai growing in the growbags next to them). And their leaves were smaller then the other two varieties, so we didn’t harvest many leaves due to not wanting to risk setting the plants back too much (so I don’t feel I’ve given those leaves an adequate try).
The leaves are pretty on them (tinged red) for what that matters.
Another part of the issue was my and my wife’s relative pickiness with sweet potatoes compared with other vegetables:
The potatoes were similarly the fewest of all 3 varieties (albeit more uniform) and while the flavor was good, I’m not a fan of stringiness in sweet potatoes so I didn’t care for them as much as the purple ones, and my wife isn’t a big fan of “typical" sweet potato flavor and she much preferred the taste of the two purple varieties to this pretty white fleshed one.
For reference I would categorize the DP I grew as about as stringy as a typical supermarket orange sweetpotato, (better flavor though) and maybe a slight bit dryer.
Since strings can be more related to growing culture than not, and since both the vines and the roots of my DP were less productive than what i expected, it’s possible a different season with different weather might see enough change to make it a good option for us (and at very least, I want to give the leaves a true test) so we’re going to give it a second try.
I bought some Japanese purple and the purple ube (true yam), then Stokes Purple and a generic red from the store to plant out. Thanks for the link, I’m going to check it out. We did plant some sweet potato slips in an area for ground cover and it took years to remove it all. I’m going above ground in 30 gallon planters in looser soil this time.
I really like the appearance of the purple leaf sweet potato leaf but I want one that grows a good tasting root also. Am I wanting too much? Several years ago I grafted a purple leaf vine onto a green leaf type and it performed well but that is more effort than I want to exert. Any suggestions for an all in one purple?
I grew some back in 2024, they grew very deep into the ground and were extremely hard to dig up. I am not sure the varieties I bought a slip multipack on eBay. The potatoes themselves were good, not very sweet, though I may have cured them wrong. I’d love to grow some this year but don’t have the same space to do so unless there are any suggestions on growing them in small spaces? I have noticed that with store bought sweet potatoes, the bigger the potatoes the worse it bothers my guts which is why I’d like to grow them again.
i’m growing mine in grow bags this year, we’ll seee how that is
Last year I grew mine in 20 or 25? gallon (shallow but wide) growbags and they worked fine.
End of the season I just had to dump the grow bags (they are heavy so be careful and/or get assistance to do that if using larger grow bags).
I’ll try to add pictures from shortly after planting, end of season, and harvest in case any visual processors prefer that for reference.
Looks like you got a good haul in the grow bags.
It was my first year growing sweet potatoes so I don’t have anything to compare to, but they did seem to do well for a first attempt with maybe 20 slips total and considering last year’s weather went from a monsoon like spring until mid-July and then went full drought on us until well after harvest.
Plan to do the same this year and maybe add one or two grow bags to try more varieties.
No, I don’t think you need a heating mat. Keep us updated! 
Excited as my grocery store finally got in some of the purples that I like the most- I think I’ve identified them as purple majesty. Interestingly, only Johnny’s picture of them looks accurate. They don’t have veins and have tiny dots all over the skin. They are much richer, sweeter, and flesh is significantly darker than the stokes we normally get. The past many years, I either haven’t managed to remember not to eat them, or the ones I saved didn’t keep. The go soft much faster than stokes. With just one month to go for making slips, I’m hopeful this time and have a bunch saved in various ways. Picture of what I am calling purple majesty on the left and stoked on the right. If someone knows better, please correct me.
