Too crowded. You pull the slips from the potatoes and transplant them as a single plant. You need to give them plenty of room. In a four square foot bed, 4 plants are the absolute maximum assuming the vines have room wander from the bed. Two plants would be more manageable

Also I don't count on the rootlets out a ways on the vine to produce any really usable potatoes.

THANKS! So the two potatoes that I planted will not produce any potatoes, but if I had "pulled the slips" off them-those would have? and when you say "pull the slips" how is that done? is it too late now?

Yes, too late now.

When the leaves form on the potato in the water and get about three inches tall, pinch them off and either plant directly into warm, continuously moist soil, or root them in a glass and then plant the rooted cutting.

Best of luck next year. You have fantastic soil in your set up, it sounds like.

Hepatica

Unless you have three more months of growing season yes it is too late. You probably have two - three dozen plants in that plot where you need only two plants. Pull the slips simply means to pull an indivbidual plant off the potato and transplant it into a suitable enviroment.
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farmerdilla, thanks for the great picture of a pulled slip. I've got 4x4 raised beds and we love sweet potatoes, so I think I'm going to give them a try next year now that I know what to do. Thanks again!

Sweetpotatoes grow best in moderately fertile soil that is NOT highly organic. In fact, highly organic soil can promote root diseases on sweetpotatoes. Don't get the soil too rich. Sweetpotatoes love to sprawl. A 4x4 raised bed will be about 1/4 of the area a couple of plants would love to sprawl out into.

DarJones

I can attest to the sprawling out thing...I planted 7 plants (not slips, these happened to be from a nursery already rooted/growing, I did however grow slips from the harvest from these plants the following year).

I have a garden spot about 20 x 30, the SP's were in the 2 outermost rows (rows were about 2 feet apart, plants were planted about 2 feet apart from each other), so they had approximately 15 ft to grow (I trained them early to go more or less in the one direction towards the open garden).

I dug up and filled five 5gallon buckets, ranging in size from a football to a fingerling. By the end of the season (which is later here, like late October/mid November) these 7 plants had literally spread the entire width and length of the garden, fortunately the rest of what was in there was finished, or taller, so it wasn't bothered too much.

The next season, using the slips, I had about half of what I got from their parents. and I planted about the same number of plants, but I also had about 3 volunteer plants (little ones left behind at the furthest part of the garden.

i treat sweeties like any root crop they mostly all produced will in more impoversihed soil than rich soils where they can end up with more foliage growth, and just like potato's sweet potatos' are a soil conditioner that by description indicates poorness of soil quality.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens growing sweet potato's & pineapples page

Because of all the advice I have now, I am sure next year will be grrreat! But here's the surprise: since it sounded like I was not getting anywhere this year, I thought I'd rip out the vines and plant some fall crops in the bed. And guess what I found in a small area of th bed, maybe 18 inches square? SWEET POTATOES! I wish I could post a picture. I thought I had zero, but I got a few after all. YAY!

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That is Awesome... Good Job ;-)

I just inspected mine a few days ago. Like you, I was ready to yank them. It seems they were planted ages ago. But - I was giving them the benefit of the doubt - mainly because we have had lots of "no sun" weather, and most warm weather vegetable plants aren't happy without sun at this time of year.

Anyway, when I pulled a plant - I found 2 large ones and 2 smaller. Now I'm seriously thinking of using them as a ground cover in my yard. If - as one poster above maintains - they are a "poor soil" item - that may be one of the "winners" I'm looking for.

We are in the midst of a water shortage, presently limited to 3 days per week schedule. This has prompted a lot of re-thinking on the part of some backyard gardeners, who are now converting all those lovely ornamentals to something less thirsty, so as to be able to concentrate our precious water on the plants we love the most - edibles!

Sooo - don't pull those taters just yet.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

I was just wondering when to harvest our sweeties. It is our first year trying in a raised bed. Made a 4x8 foot bed, about 16 inches deep, so by farmerdilla's estimate I should have had only 8. We do have a lot more. I dug my finger to feel for potatoes, and we have some the size of fingerlings. Will not mind eating them like that. I know now to spread them out more next year.

We were questioning when will they have reached their maximum growth? The foliage is still green and vibrant. We planted them around March. It has been unusually cool in spring and summer here. I don't mind waiting for them to grow but don't want them to become 'overdone'. Not sure how to tell when to harvest. With regular Irish style potatoes I usually wait until the foliage is brown and withering. Is it the same thing? If so then it is too early to harvest. TIA!

I was just wondering when to harvest our sweeties. It is our first year trying in a raised bed. Made a 4x8 foot bed, about 16 inches deep, so by farmerdilla's estimate I should have had only 8. We do have a lot more. I dug my finger to feel for potatoes, and we have some the size of fingerlings. Will not mind eating them like that. I know now to spread them out more next year.

We were questioning when will they have reached their maximum growth? The foliage is still green and vibrant. We planted them around March. It has been unusually cool in spring and summer here. I don't mind waiting for them to grow but don't want them to become 'overdone'. Not sure how to tell when to harvest. With regular Irish style potatoes I usually wait until the foliage is brown and withering. Is it the same thing? If so then it is too early to harvest. TIA!

I was just wondering when to harvest our sweeties. It is our first year trying in a raised bed. Made a 4x8 foot bed, about 16 inches deep, so by farmerdilla's estimate I should have had only 8. We do have a lot more. I dug my finger to feel for potatoes, and we have some the size of fingerlings. Will not mind eating them like that. I
know now to spread them out more next year.

We were questioning when will they have reached their maximum growth? The foliage is still green and vibrant. We planted them around March. It has been unusually cool in spring and summer here. I don't mind waiting for them to grow but don't want them to become 'overdone'. Not sure how to tell when to harvest. With regular Irish style potatoes I usually wait until the foliage is brown and withering. Is it the same thing? If so then it is too early to harvest. TIA!

WOW!!!! What an echo we have in here..... LOL.

I too am wondering when to harvest them for max taste.

So sorry about that. The site gave me an error message so I was unaware my question got posted. And reposted. And reposted....LOL

In a temperate climate, standard practice is to dig them just before the first frost. They are tropical perennials so those of you in frost free zones can Harvest any time they are big enough for your purposes. Best flavor occurs after they spend a couple of weeks ( warm and dry) curing after harvest. They give up excess water concentrating the sweetness.

Thank you farmerdilla! Just before the first frost or when they are 'ready'. Some years we get a frost end of December/early January here, so I'll make sure they are harvested by then.