baabaamilker,

My wife kept a sweet potato slip in a flower vase once for two or three years and it ran all over the place until it finally died. I had about a dozen to sprout last winter so put them in a quart jar with hopes of keeping them till planting time. They looked great for a while until what looked like spider mites got on them and it was down hill from there. When planting time came they had all died. You might have better luck planting them in sand as Dawn suggested. One good thing was all the sweet potatoes that I pulled the slips off of sprouted again in the spring and I had slips to plant. I hope you have better luck than I had.

What Dawn said. I already have slips started for next year already. I prune them as they grow, like Dawn said, and then I take the cuttings and stick them into soil so they root and then keep splitting and growing until I have enough for me and enough to give out.

Thank you all!! I'll see if I can't hang onto them for a while. Dawn you are always very informative and it never fails that you make me giggle at least a little with each of your posts, they always have an element of humor in them.

I'm a background kind of person, I try to do more reading than posting, so I know a lot more about you than you do of me.

Do do you attend the spring fling? I think it would be a great deal of fun to meet you in person. I've never been myself.

How large are the sprouts? Some varieties will have tiny little bud like sprouts within a couple weeks of harvest. But they will usually hold fine until March, when I start my slips. Be sure to keep your roots in a warm place. Try not to let them go below 50 F.

George

Here's a picture I just took. This root will hold fine, probably until summer 2017.

baabaamilker,

Thanks for the kind words.

I do attend the Spring Fling most years. I think I've only missed 2 of them since 2005. Spring Flings are the best sort of family reunion as we get to see again or meet for the first time, etc. our extended gardening family and bring home tons of new plants.

I hope you'll post more often so we can get to know you. As I am sure you've noticed, we have a lot of wonderful people here in our gardening family.

George, as you may or may not know, is our resident sweet potato expert so I'm glad he is here and saw your question.

Dawn

George here is what my sprouts look like. any tips you can give to a new beginner would be great. I did learn some things this year. I learned that the kind of soil you plant them in is pretty important. Just because they like heat doesn't mean they like clay. Out of the forty slips I planted I only got 20lbs. Of sweet potatoes. Most of them had splits and dark areas.

Dawn, where and when is the spring fling again? Do I need to bring some plants or seeds to contribute? Does it work out as a one for one deal?

I've got several kiddos that enjoy gardening with me that I can bring too.

Denise

These are Hernandez Sweet Potatoes

You can just leave them, or you can rub them off. That root should store pretty well. Right now it's good to be finding any roots with damage and using them first, as they won't last very long.

Yes, clay can be tough on sweet potatoes. I have clay and egg sized (mainly) rock. Every year I try to get more organic material worked in, and it is helping quite a bit. Also, Oklahoma Red is a variety which was developed for clay.

One third of my planting produced poorly this year. The main problem was that my irrigation (T tape) failed to water out that far. The plastic mulch kept the roots from receiving much rain water. It truly helps production if you can soak them about once every other week, during the hottest part of the summer. Seems to make production improve greatly.

I only got to the Spring Fling once. But it was great fun to meet everyone. Someday...

Denise, The Spring Fling usually is held in central Oklahoma. For the last few years, Paula (who posts here as P-Mac) and Ken have very graciously hosted the Spring Fling at their home in Norman, for which we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. It has been held in Tulsa at least once that I can remember and also sometimes at Will Rogers Park in OKC. We do not yet know where the 2017 Spring Fling will be held, but the location usually is firmed up in March and the Spring Fling usually is held near the end of April.

Sometimes, plant exchanges and seed swaps do exist as a one-for-one swap, and anyone who participates in our Spring Flings can do it that way if they so desire. There is nothing wrong with that. However, what most of us do is this.....we load up our vehicles with extra veggie, herb and flower seedlings, seed packets, divisions/suckers (often trees, shrubs or vines), rooted cuttings, bulbs, tubers, etc. and take them to the Spring Fling where we pile them up on tables, in buckets and boxes, on the ground, etc. Then we beg everyone to please take as many as they wish because we don't want to haul them all back home again. It truly is the Spirit of Giving in action. There's always tons of stuff leftover as well.

We also have a covered dish lunch with everyone bringing something to contribute to the luncheon. There's a rented Port-A-Potty and we all chip in a few bucks to help pay for that. There's an optional door prize activity where everyone who brings a door prize can get a ticket to participate later in the day in the Door Prize Giveaway. The door prize can be anything, new or used, and there's been a fascinating selection of door prizes over the years, including garden tools, decorative garden objects, canned goods (from the garden, of course), garden supplies like hats, watering wands, watering cans, hoops for low tunnels, floating row cover, birdhouses (sometimes made from birdhouse gourds that someone grew in their own garden), gardening books, home-made sugar-soap hand scrubs, rain gauges, planters or pots, etc.

Mostly it is just a ton of fun, and I guarantee you that everyone who attends will leave a couple of hours later feeling like they just spent the day with long-lost, far-flung family members who are, if not related by blood, then surely related by kindness, friendship and the love of gardening. It is hard to explain it, but 5 minutes after you meet everyone, even those you've never met a single time before, you feel like you've known them forever. It happens every time. There's just an amazing kinship and no pressure---quiet, shy people can sit in a chair and mostly just watch if they aren't real comfortable talking with strangers, and that is OK too. I look forward to the Spring Fling every year just as much as I look forward to seeing extended family members on birthdays and seasonal holidays. Spouses and family members (and friends too) always are welcome to attend. It is the highlight of our forum's gardening year, and I hope you'll be able to join us.

Dawn

SOLD!!!! Sounds like a lot of fun. We are about 45 min from the Norman/OKC area. We will have to plan to be there.

George, where can I find the oklahoma variety of sweet taters?

It is the best time I have ever had besides my children, grandchild. And the trades usually go like this.....

You are new...you bring 10 things...we force you to cram your car full. It's awesome.

I know of three sources:
Duck Creek Farms (Gary Shaum)
Sandhill Preservation Center
Me

I lost my stock in the 2015 sweet potato/rodent massacre. But I received enough new roots to pretty well guarantee that I offer the variety in 2017.

The other two sources are kind of the pros out there. They each have hundreds of varieties (I think. Haven't counted.) I keep about a dozen varieties.

But the beauty of the matter is that we help one another. I've helped Duck Creek Farms fill an order or two, when his stock ran low on something I had. They've probably done the same for one another. All three willing share stock, to keep it going when there is a crop failure.

Several years ago I lost almost all my sweet potatoes, due to getting chilled in storage. I bit the bullet to order some slips from Duck Creek Farms and Gary almost swamped me in slips, asking me to trial some. That's when I got my start of Grand Asia, which I truly love. When I lived outside the USA for nearly 14 years, Sandhill Preservation send me Red Wine Velvet, which I had sent to them years before. And, when we returned to the States without any sweet potato stock they set us back up with our favorites.

That great that you all can help one another out. I'll have to check those resources. Thanks George.