Sweet potato vine

I have a question that might be silly or stupid but I really don't know so here goes. Is the sweet potato vine that is grown in containers the same sweet potato vine that can be grown by putting a sweet potato in a glass of water with toothpicks holding it in the glass?

Thanks,
Jesse

Don't know however have wondered the same thing.

I was intrigued by your question so I went googling. I think that the one grown from a tuber obtained at the grocery store will sprout green leaves like in the pic below. I was not able to find anywhere whether the tubers from the ornamental ipomea batatas (ie Blackie, Marguerite) are edible.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.hort.cornell.edu/4hplants/Vegetables/Images/Sweet-Potato-24.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.hort.cornell.edu/4hplants/Vegetables/SweetPotato.html

Edited to add that the tubers on my Ipomea Blackie, are generally long and not as thick as a regular sweet potato. also not as orangey-looking.

This message was edited Oct 3, 2006 11:36 AM

What I want to really know is this: If I grow a sweet potato vine using a sweet potato in a glass with toothpicks, can I take that vine and plant it in the ground? And will it grow? I have heard that it will not grow in soil after it was started in water and that is what I was wondering.

Jesse

the pics on the link I provided look like they're planted inground. farmers grow them inground. don't know of any plant that succumbed inground, just 'cause they were started in water (provided other factors are equal, ie care, soil health, no wild weather fluctuations, etc).

I hope you will try. looks like a very pretty plant and then edible, to boot

Please excuse these pictures. It’s the end of the season, the bugs have been at them and they are definitely not showing their best. These are ornamental sweet potatoes. You can eat them but I don’t know how tasty they would be. In May of 2005 I bought some for my deck boxes at the nursery. At the end of the season while cleaning out the boxes I found sweet potatoes in the boxes. I put them in my laundry room over winter and this spring I started new ones. I put the potatoes (just one of each color) in a container of water covering just half of the potato and leaving the other half dry. First the roots started to grow from the eyes that were submerged and then the plants started to grow from the eyes that were dry. When the plants were about 3 to5 inches tall I carefully pulled them loose from the potato and put them in a small glass of water. The plants then developed roots and when the root system looked large and strong enough I transplanted them to pots and then later into my window and deck boxes. I’m not sure that’s the best way to start them but it worked very well for me. I had so many I gave them to family, friends, and coworkers. They got huge in my boxes covering and crowding out most of the other plants and they were beautiful.

This is a picture of one of the mother plants. The potato was still producing plants and I didn’t need anymore. I filled the bottom half of the sprinkling can with rocks and then put a plastic container in the top half. Just an old cool whip container that I squeezed thru the top of the can. I put the potato in that and just let it grow all summer in water. I set it on my porch step.

If you go to this site you can see it as part of the grouping and there is one in the pot on the wall next to the grouping too. I really had a lot of them I put them in everything. My picture is pretty far down the thread.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/643006/

Plantcrazii;
That is one method of propagating, sweetpotatos. You can take cuttings and root them. You can then plant them in your garden and if you like sweet potatos.
It don't take many to give you a years supply.
I assumed you were talking about the food varity sweetpotato. I like the Georga jet. The ornamental potato vine would act much the same. I don't know if they are edible. but a little googling may come up with that answer too.
Now My sweet taders were not all like this but I don't think you would want to put this one in a glass of water ((*-*))

I mainly want mine to use in flower arrangements but if I could get some to use as food that would be great too, but that is not my main reason for growing it. So can I go to the grocery store and buy any type of sweet potato and put it in water with the toothpicks and grow a nice vine and then plant that vine in some soil?

Thanks,
Jesse

One quick question that I have is what time of the year do you plant the sweet potatos? I would like to try some next year but when do you plant them? And don't you have special seed potatos or will plain ones do?

Jesse

I'm glad I found this discussion!!!! I was asking the exact same questions over on plant trading and international trading. Now I understand that the best ones for eating are the fat orange fleshed ones bred for that purpose, I am going to buy some from the supermarket and give it a go. As for the ornamental varieties I just have to wait till they come to our part of the world. Spain is decades behind when it comes to variety in ornamentals...sigh

Ok so can I just plant the tubers in a pot of soil and wait for shoots or should I let them grow shoots and root those?

l1zzy, both ways will work. do it in the spring. I personally prefer rooting in water first, but both methods will work. If planting tubers, select one with lots of eyes to improve the probabilities of rooting.

PS: You could probably root some in water right now but you'd probably have to bring plant indoors for protection if your area gets colder than 40-45 degrees Farenheit in the winter. Then take out in the spring.

This message was edited Oct 9, 2006 12:38 PM

I appreciate the trouble you took to explain this....I'm going to try it both ways. Sweet potatoes are all in the markets right now so it's not like they're very precious!!!

Do you have to make a cut across the tuber and rest the cut surface on the water or do you just put the pointy end in the water? I know that sounds silly but until you've seen it it's hard to imagine.

I would like this answered as well. I have seen it done a lot of times but I've never done it myself. So any information would be really appreciated.

Thanks,
Jesse

When I started mine I put them in a plactic container laid it on it's side so that about half of the potato was covered with water. That's all just laid it on it's side in a container poured water over it and set it in a window. I started the whole process in the spring maybe April as we don't put anything out until after Mother's Day due to frost.

looks like there are many ways of starting them off - thanks for your input!

I haven't cleaned out my window/deck boxes yet so I don't know how many potatoes I'll have to share but I could send them out to anyone who wants them. I have 2 varieties just check out the pictures above to see them. I'm not sure about sending them to Spain. They would be considered produce. What are the restrictions?

Spain has so little regulation as to be laughable!!!!! I appreciate your warm generosity HollyAnnS. At the moment I have been offered some tubers of Blackie and if that trade goes ahead it would be unfair to accept your offer too as it is quite a complicated matter with sending dollars through the mail and all the effort of packing them safely. thank you very much for your kind thought. Lizzy

Okay, just a quickie, but here in AZ, you can just drop a small tuber in the ground and it will explode with growth in late spring. They dont need, but appreciate, a bit of water. What they want is HEAT. Ive had them for just a few years, but they have spread everywhere. If they werent edible, Id call them a weed!. They make great groundcovers, rebounding quickly from a trim. Highly, and strongly, recommended for those very exposed spots that get a lot of heat. Tubers are edible from each variety, though the ornamentals have very little meat to them and probably arent worth the effort.
DD

HollyAnn you have dmail

I know how to raise sweet potatoes. I grew up on a farm. And i also raised some in fla. you have a sweet potato and you want to grow some, Ok put the potato in a real warm place and soon it will send out shoots and you can take a knife and cut chunks off of it where the vine is coming out that is the (eye) and for each of the eyes you will have one vine. Plant them a few inches deep in good soil and stand back and watch them grow very fast in the spring and summer. It takes several months for them to get big. In Miss they plant them and in the fall they dig them up. The longer they are in the ground the bigger they get.and they take a lot of room to grow. the more room the more potatoes you will get. I imagine one vine will produce half a bushel of sweep potatoes, They are better for you than the other type of potatoes are ( Irish Potatoes or red potatoes and the both varieties are grown the same way but the other varieties grow like a bush not a vine. Fertilize one time as I recall and then when you are ready to harvest you can dig down in the ground and look to see how big they are without digging them all up but in the fall they should be big. In Miss they plant after the last frost and dig them up in the fall usually sept. some are as big as 3 pounds. Fran

Great info Fran. thanks. How are they better for you than Irish potatoes? Not doubting - just increasingly interested in this vegetable.