I always grow Vardaman, a bush variety that perfectly fits my 4 ft wide beds. It's a delicious, deep orange sweet potatoe too.

Depends a great deal on what you like. Moist or dry flesh? white, Yellow, or Orange flesh. Vardaman and Porto Bunch are good orange fleshed bunch types. Centennial, Jewel, Carver, Oklahoma Red, Beauregard, Georgia Jets are good orange flesh. Nancy hall is a good yellow fleshed types. White Triumph is a decent bunch type dry white. Violetta is a good white fleshed type, but not hot yielding. O'Henry is a new entry in this group but I have not grown it.

O'Henry white sweet potato is by far the best regular/sweet potato I've ever eaten. When I tried to order more this year the first company I called was already out of them in January. They are growing in popularity and I definately reccomend them if you can find them.

I grow Red Wine Velvet and Brinkley White. Red Wine Velvet is an heirloom I've had since 1984, when I purchased roots from an older gentleman at the Farmer's Market in Warsaw, IN. Since then it has been sold through Sandhill Preservation, at least. This is a Red skinned, orange fleshed sweet potato with the distinction of having exceedingly moist flesh. It makes a nice caramel under the skin when baked.

Brinkley White is a white skinned, very light yellow (almost white) fleshed variety which I received in an order of mixed sweet potatoes from Sandhill Preservation Center, back around 2002. It's very productive and drier than Red Wine Velvet. This winter I've become especially fond of these. They are also very sweet.

If you would want to try a selection, Sandhill offers a couple of different kinds of "mixed bag" offerings. I believe this is a very good way to try a number of varieties quickly. In 2002 I ordered just such a selection. In it were Maryland 810 and Georgia Red, as well as Brinkley White. I liked all of them. Though we lost the other two when we moved here to Oklahoma. There is a tremendous variety of sweet potatoes out there!

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: Sandhill's Sweet Potatoes

Lots of good info in this sweet potato thread.

I have only grown sweet potatoes 2, possible 3 times. I stopped because the vines took over the landscape and also because of borer issues. Each year I produced my slips from a couple of locally grown sweets purchased from the local farmers market. Hence, I couldn't tell yo what variety I planted.

After looking at the posts with the attached linked references, I'm amazed at the number of selections that are out there for folks to choose from. The short vine varieties have particularly caught my attention. So do those of you who have lots of experienc growning sweetpotatoes choose a specific variety and keep a few sweet potatoes from one year to the next to use for producing your own slips? Or, do you re-order each year? If you reorder, do you order seed potatoes or slips?

I started my slips today....so this is the start of the gardening season for me. I started O'Henry, Beauregard, and Nancy Hall.

I put down a bed for slips every year for my main crop. I also buy 50- 100 slips of a new to me cultivar each year. If they are superior performers, I will grow my own slips in subsequent years. That way I drop and add cultivars each year.

Farmerdill, I noted your sweet potato ratings on the Cornell site... good information. Lots of choices but seemingly not as many as shown in the above linked references. I'm thinking of possibly trying a short vine variety. Which in your opinion would a good one to try? Depending on your location I'm thinking that climate-wise your GA location vs my S LA isn't going to be too much different (Sunset zone 28 possibly?? 31). (other factors not withstanding..)

(On a side note, last year I tried the Burpee Hybrid canteloupe based on your Cornell recommendation. I too have rated it highly. It's now going to be a regular along side Ambrosia, which still does well for me. I'm not sure how many are using the Cornell site for both logging results and for getting recommendations. If not using it, you may want to check it out..)

The Porto Rico bunch is an LSU developed potato. It was one of the first bunch types and is still good. Vardaman is newer and more disease resistant. I have grown the white Triumph which is a bunch type. Performs well, but I don't like dry sweet potatoes. Some of the vining types have less vines than others, Carver and Ringley's Porto Rico have shorter vines than other vining types. Light orange flesh, but pretty good eating.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet potato cultivars

Here is the list of commercial cultivars.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet potato list

Last year I bought some slips from a man on EBAY. The Ruby Red. These grew VERY well for me here in Georgia and are very tasty. I saved some of the smaller ones to make slips for my garden this year. I would love to try the O'Henry and Red Wine Velvet they sound wonderful.

I'm with grandad, I buy organic sweet potatoes and start my slips from there. I also save sweet potatoes I grow from year to year so that when I find one I like, I can continue growing it.

DOES ANYONE KNOW A PLACE I CAN GET SWEET POTATOS SLIPPS OF THE KOREAN PURPLE, OKINAWAN.OLD KENTUCKY, VIOLETTA ? SAND HILL DOES NOT HAVE THESE. OR JUST A POTATO OR TWO OF EACH.
THANKS

Coach23, like you, I've been looking around for Okinawan slips at the usual sources but could not get them. I found a site www.michaels4gardens.com and have e-mailed that person. He told me that he has Okinawan slips available for $10 per dozen. Shipping is $5 to me. You might want to check it out.

I purchased "Japanese Sweet Potatoes" from Whole Foods here in VA and love these. I wanted to know if anyone knows what sweet potato it is being sold at the Whole Foods? The potatoes are purple skinned and white flesh that turns a golden color when cooked. They are sweet tasting, a little paste like texture, and on the dryer side. All I find are multiple names for these so I wanted to see if someone can help.

Thank you.

Dave

Most likely Red Japanese or Murasaki https://www.tatorman.com/red-japanese/ http://www.sweetpotatoplant.com/shop/murasaki/ May be the same variety, anyway they are becoming commercially popular for the Asian market.

These look correct so I may just need to try them and see. How about the O'Henry sweet potatoes? These sound like good potatoes as well.

O'Henry is my favorite...yellow and sweet.

I really like crystal white sweet potatoes. They are an early variety with shorter vines that are slightly drier, but very sweet. I also grow Korean Purples which are good for roasting, but have more vines. I tried Ivy Carver orange potatoes and they were tasty, but something ate most of mine.

I bought some sweet potatoes at Whole Foods that I wanted to start slips from and unfortunately, they rotted. They had vivid red violet skin and the flesh was white. They were as sweet as candy. Anybody want to guess what variety they were?

Muraski?... Steele Plant Company sells this one that might be the one.

It could be Murasaki. I grew it in 2014. A Korean friend tells me that the Korean purple sweet potato is even sweeter.