One wonderful source is Duck Creek Farms, which is located in the Tulsa area. I have linked their website below. You can order them and have them shipped to you or pick them up from Gary at one of the spring festivals or farmer's markets at which he is a vendor.

I grew 20 heirloom varieties from Duck Creek Farms last year and was thrilled with the way they performed even though they were "trial" varieties and we didn't know in advance what kind of success we'd have with them here in this climate.
Gary describes each variety on his Sweet Potato List there on the website. My experience is that if Gary sells a variety, it will perform well here.

If you cannot decide which varieties you want to grow, you can ask Gary for recommendations by e-mailing him at his website, or he may see this thread and respond here. I don't know if he'll be online a lot the next couple of days because he faces the challenge of keeping his greenhouses warm and also in keeping the snow off of them during this very cold spell.
Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Duck Creek Farms

Thank you again Dawn. Tulsa is only an hour away from me so I could probably run over there to pick them and steal some advice too!!

You're welcome. Gary's a great guy and I am sure he'll give you good advice.

Gary,

I would like to try few very sweet sweet potatoes in newly prepared beds. Soil is typical red clay, located in Norman Area, receive all day sunlight.

Could you please recommend few varieties which produce heavy but very sweet in taste. I am planning to make trip to Tulsa to pick tomato plants, is that good time for collecting potato plants as well? When should I place order? When is good time to plan in ground?

Thank you -Chandra

i have good soil that we till over 2 ft deep every spring and it will stay loose... My boss at the USDA said that he mixes sreded paper into his soil.. and that helps keep it loose for them to grow and expand.. i need potato growing help period

Chandra,

I'm not Gary, but I wanted to share with you what I did. I trust Gary to pick for me and make judgement calls, so I gave him a lot of leeway. Sweet potatoes need warm weather. The Oklahoma weather when we go pick up tomatoes may or may not be warm enough, so on my order form I just told Gary to ship when it was warm enough. For varieties, I told him how many total plants I wanted, and a range of the number of varieties. I described my soil (sand), growing preferences (vines, not bush) and my flavor preferences (sweet and moist, not dry) From there, I'm just leaving it in his hands to surprise me. I can't wait to see what I ordered!

Seedmama, Oooh, surprises like that are fun! I can't wait to see what Gary sends you too. There's nothing better than letting a pro decide what you need to grow!

Dawn

Seedmama, you are very smart lady! I hope you won't mind I copy paste your approach and wait for another surprise from Gary.

-Chandra

Krussow, I can only dream about having soil I can till 2 ft. deep. One reason I dont remove the sod when I put in a bed or garden is that I would remove all my top soil in doing so. It is a major task for me to dig 2 ft. dp. with post hole diggers, and the stuff I remove looks like anything but soil.

You are lucky to have deep soil like that. I bet more people on this forum have soil more like mine than like yours.

I wish you good luck and happy gardening.

Larry

Slowpoke gardener, You don't say what kind of sod you have, but if it isn't bermuda, you might consider this approach. A sage on the Winter Sowing forum used a technique he called Instant Beds. He cut the sod, lay down sheets of cardboard, the put the sod back, upside down. The "green" (nitrogen) of the grass next to the "brown" (carbon) of the cardboard composted quickly. He planted "instantly". Of course this approach won't work with bermuda, but I wanted to share it in case you are lucky enough to have something else.

Chandra, I'm so glad you liked the idea. My success with sweet potatoes has been rather serendipitous, as described on other threads. However, when I read the growing guides on duckcreekfarms.com and sandhillpreservation.com I know that they are accurate, because those are exactly the conditions I have unwittingly provided for sweet potatoes. Both sites are a bit awkward to navigate, but I don't mind for the same reason I am buying from Gary: They are small businesses with a purposeful mission. Their resources go more toward their primary mission and less toward the fanciest technology. It's good enough to get the job done, and that's all that counts.

We'll have to report in on our growing successes!

Seedmama