Add sweet potatoes to your garden this year if you have enough space. Despite their name, sweet potatoes are not related to white potatoes. They thrive in warm weather and are a healthy source of vitamins A and C.
Here are some key tips for growing sweet potatoes in the Kentucky Garden.
The following varieties are known to grow well in Kentucky.
• Beauregard has copper skin and deep-orange flesh.
• Hernandez has brighter orange skin and colored flesh. It also has a tapered root that can be pretty long.
• O’Henry is white-skinned and has pale flesh.
• Japanese/Murasaki has rare purple skin and a drier, white flesh.
• Covington has copper and rose-colored skin with orange flesh.
Growing Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are grown from slips of plant shoots from one end of a mature sweet potato. You can buy slips or grow them from mature sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes placed in moist potting soil will often grow slips in a few weeks. It would be best to start them indoors for about a month before planting them outdoors. Once the slips root, break them off from the sweet potato and move them to the garden when the weather is warm. You can get many slips from one sweet potato.
Planting Sweet Potatoes
Plant slips 12 to 15 inches apart in 36-inch-wide rows to allow vines to grow. Slips can grow from a mature sweet potato. Based on the variety, once your sweet potatoes are in the ground, they will take 90 to 140 days to mature.
Harvesting & Curing Sweet Potatoes
Harvesting sweet potatoes will keep growing as long as their vines stay alive. Clip the vines back to the soil level before the first frost or when you are ready to harvest. Harvest sweet potatoes with a spade, shovel, or hand trowel.
After harvesting, sweet potatoes should be cured for three to five days at 80 to 85 degrees F in high humidity.
After being cured, move the sweet potatoes to an unfinished basement or root cellar. This room should be around 55 degrees F and have low humidity.
Wireworms are pests that can affect sweet potatoes. A disease that affects sweet potatoes is scurf.
Preparing Sweet Potatoes from the Garden
Sweet potatoes can be baked, boiled, or microwaved. One unique way to use sweet potatoes at home is to make this BBQ Sweet Potato Nachos recipe. Check out the video below to view the recipe and learn how to make it at home.
Check out the University of Kentucky Extension Service publications below for more information on growing and caring for sweet potatoes.
Recommended Extension Publications:
NEP-232: Growing Your Own Vegetables: Sweet Potatoes: https://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/NEP/NEP232/NEP232.pdf
Home Vegetable Gardening Guide for Kentucky, ID-128: https://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/ID/ID128/ID128.pdf
Sweetpotato Production for Kentucky, ID-195: https://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/id/id195/id195.pdf
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