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Vegetable Gardening

Sweet Potatoes dying??

11 years ago

Hi
I started a sweet potato in water in January and I now have a lovely bunch of leaves. My problem is is that some of the leaves are dying off now. What am i doing wrong. I always top up the water. Should I twist off the slips and put them in water? I don't want to start this to soon as it is just March now and I won't be able to put them in the garden till May 24....any advise?

Thanks

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Comments (3)

grandad_2003
11 years ago
I think you might be jumping the gun a bit. I'd suggest waiting until May 1 to start the slips if your target date for planting is May 24. Additional feedback from folks in your area (Canada) might be a bit more helpful.
digdirt2
11 years ago
Agree it is way too early but you can try rooting some of the slips in some damp potting mix to see if they will take. I plant my sweet pots in potting mix rather than water to begin with and the slip do much better for me that way.

I suppose you could also try adding a bit of fertilizer to the water to see if that helps keep the plant going. They need more than water to survive.

Dave
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If you want a compact sweet potato, Amish Bush Porto Rico does pretty well. It is a variant of the old Porto Rico. My personal favorite is Bradshaw aka Mahon. It is a a very good general purpose sweet potato that produces a good crop even in short season areas. Most important, they are much better flavored and have better texture than Georgia Jet. I've also had very good results with Covington which is a recent release that produces much higher quality sweet potatoes than industry standards like Beauregard. Sandhill's business is first come first serve. This is why it is important to order early. It is not a matter of being on a waiting list, you will be on a waiting list if you order from virtually any sweet potato supplier. Get your order in early and Sandhill will almost always ship slips in a 2 week window timed for your location. Mahon is also available from Johnny's this year so if you are ordering from them, consider getting sweet potato plants too.
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Hi, My sweet potato leaves are yellowing, having spots, wilting and dying off. I live in Sydney. When I planted the sweet potatoes, they are growing very well, like in the first picture. Later on this problem started: one leaf on one plant got yellow. It was like this for a long time and as it was just one leaf, I didn't think it was something to worry about. I got worried when a second leaf turned yellow and I started sewing small black ants on the plant coming from the roots of the plant of that leaf. More and more leaves have yellowed and the whole stalk drooped downwards. I've been treating the affected plants so this (in the other pictures is what my plant is up to now. I'm a first time gardener so I checked a few remedies online and tried them. Nothing seems to be working. I've sprayed the following on them: canola oil, water solution is dried chilli pepper, water solution of clove oil, tea tree oil and rosemary oil. Nothing seems to working. So what do I do? Can I save the plant. At least ud like to save the soil so I can still use to pot to plant another batch of sweat potatoes. Please help.
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mrdoitall
11 years ago
As Dave said, or you can use sand. I let them grow about 4 to 6 inches long cut them off. No roots then stick them in small pots with potting mix and keep them watered good. After a few weeks they are ready to plant out in my garden.
You only want the slip to have 2 or 3 roots. That all they need to get started in the garden. The reason is most of the new roots will make potatoes. If you don't believe me take one and let get a big root ball on the end and plant it. You want get any potatoes. Now do it my way and you will get 5 to 10 lbs per plant in good loose soil. Also where the vine touches the grown keep it pulled up and don't let it root. That way all the potatoes will grow from only the area you planted them. If you let the vine root on up the vine it will take energy from the end where the potatoes grow and they want get as much or as big. I have planted them 1 ft apart in rows. Some people plant them 18 inches apart. But I like 1 ft. I got about 150 lbs of 20 ft row last year. That about 7.5 lbs per plant.

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