2 questions: trellis & sweet potato

15 years ago

First, I want to put up a trellis that will support one sugar baby watermelon vine and one Hale's best canteloupe during the spring and a pumpkin vine in the summer. I'd like to use an arch made from PVC and wire that arches over a 4x4 box. I want to plant shade loving plants under the arch. I'm not sure what size PVC I need to support the weight or what gauge of wire mesh/fencing. Will I need additional support? Any suggestions?

Second, approximately how long does it take to grow sweet potato slips? I've got sweet potatoes sitting in cups of water and am just beginning to see roots sprouting into the water. I haven't seen any growth on top. This problem is probably just my LACK of patience, but dang, hurry up already!

Kym

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Comments (11)

engineeredgarden
15 years ago
Kym - I've put alot of thought into the trellis you're wanting to build, and would probably go with 1" schedule 40 pvc pipe. Bigger would be even better, but not very flexible. Since the wire is actually gonna support the fruit's weight, it will have to be fairly strong. Mine is 16 gauge, and holds Hale's best cantaloupes with ease, but not a pumpkin.

You're supposed to start making your own slips about 2- 2 1/2 months before planting time. Mine are slow, too...

EG
lowraine
15 years ago
Can we take this subject further please? I have just made a large box that will have butterbeans and watermelon. I have another box that will have tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. I plan to use trellis with string for the tomato box. I am now thinking of two separate trellis for the butterbeans and melons. I hadn't thought of wire but string would not hold the melons. Comments please.
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g'day weedlady, just simply cut the tuber in 1/2 crossways and stand each cut end in a little water enough to keep the ends moist, don't let the water evaporate away top it up, and those ends will bud, at which stage when the shoots reach about 4"s cut that section out and divide if you wish and plant them out no roots are need, though the tubers may grow roots in the water. so as you remove those growth sections and return the tuber to the water it will again grow shoots. len Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page
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Last year I planted 8 slips, totally ignored them and ended up with about 40 tubers. I have rocky soil, so a lot of them were quite...creative. I think 24 skips would probably get you what you want even accounting for reasonable losses. Sweet potatoes store a long time in ideal conditions, but a whole year seems unlikely, but slices dehydrate nicely and sweet potato au gratin is very tasty. (The ugly ones also make great dog treats.)
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curious question penny, this is what i saw after googling the topic: "The ornamental sweet potatos (Ipomoea batatas) are fast growing, twining vines with palmately lobed leaves. These showy forms produce a tuberous root identical in appearance to the common (green leaved) sweet potato but probably not tasty. Three types are of ornamental sweet potato are cultivated for annual, summer vines: 'Blackie' with dark purple, nearly black foliage; 'Margarita' with chartreuse leaves; and 'Tricolor' with pale green, white and pink margined leaves. 'Blackie' and 'Margarita' come back with the same color foliage as the mother plant, but 'Tricolor' may revert to green." here's a quote from another site: "This week's Reiman's Pick, the sweet potato vine, is an ornamental that earned its way out of the vegetable garden. Sweet potato vine, Ipomoea batatas, is a true sweet potato complete with tubers, but has bolder, more colorful foliage than its vegetable sibling. Unfortunately, it is either beauty or bounty with ornamental sweet potatoes because the underground tubers are bitter and not considered edible." might be best to grow regular sweeties if you want something to eat hey? len Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page
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Thought I would post an update. I ended up with six plants that I transplanted out to the garden around the July 4 holiday. Made two hills and planted three plants per hill. Plants grew nicely in spite of having a rather cool summer. Initially after planting out some unknown insect creature did serious damage to the foliage but it stopped, never reoccurred, and the plants recovered. I know deer love browsing on sweet potato vines so I placed the hills inside my electric fence to protect them from this potential issue. Dug up plants yesterday, harvested 16 pounds of sweet potatoes. I was very happy with the results considering it was a rather cool summer. Biggest mistake I made was that the potted plants got root bound, with roots circling inside the pots. Really had no choice as I could not plant sooner due to heavy rains and cold temps in June. I broke the roots up as best I could when I planted but still got a few goofy shaped tubers, which is no big deal to me. Had sweet potatoes for dinner last night, they were nice but a bit on the bland side. Was not surprise at this because last winter when I bought the original one for rooting I bought a few extras to try and thought those bland as well. Was the whole thing worth it? In the end probably not, but it did not take much effort and it was a fun experiment. It was the first time I succeeded in rooting a store bought sweet potato. I am still against purchasing slips mail order, so if I cannot purchase slips locally at the proper time then starting them myself is the only option. -Tom
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dutchess_9
15 years ago
The top growth will show up soon! Check out my sweet potato page...worked like a charm.

Let the page load and then click on sweet potato on the right hand side of the page.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet Potato
engineeredgarden
15 years ago
lowraine, what kind of melon? I don't recall ever trellising butterbeans, just let them bush. The wire mesh with 2" x 3" openings in the garden center at Lowes will hold the cantaloupes (if vertical) with ease.

EG
daves_girl
Original Author
15 years ago
EG - Could I go with 16 gauge wire if I had 3 PVC pieces to make up the arch instead of 2? I was thinking I could use the hammocks to cradle the pumpkin and attach it to the PVC, or is it still more dependent on the wire?

Thanks Dutchess. Maybe I'll see some growth soon. Maybe gardening will teach me patience :)
engineeredgarden
15 years ago
Kym - If you'll stabilize the pvc somehow so it doesn't move back and forth - you can hang a melon from it very well. Doing it this way will allow you to use 16 gauge mesh for letting the vines run on.

EG
lowraine
15 years ago
EG, I grew up with butterbeans growing up. We used post with wire between the post at the top and bottom then we ran twine or cardlacing up and down between the wires. Here in NC we can purchase bush butterbeans and pole beans. I would be happy to send you a pack if you are not able to get them where you are. My undle moved to Ohio back during the 70's and couldn't find pole butterbeans, he had someone from back home send him the seed for his garden. They are planted after the last frost, produce later than bush beans but produce more than the bush, they last until the frost kills them in the fall. We never considered bush beans, I never heard of them until now. I will plant bush beans so I can get the bean first. We folks here in NC fight for the first mess of butterbeans. LH
engineeredgarden
15 years ago
Lowraine - sure, i'll take some! I've never heard of them before. They will be good for Dad, because he is not allowed to eat anything green, because of medical reasons. BTW, I really liked the "mess" part. That's what we say too! Ha!

EG
lowraine
15 years ago
EG, what do you mean when you say your father can't eat things that are green. Our pole bean is the same as a bush butterbean. How do I get your address? Your email on your profile doesn't work for me.
jengc
15 years ago
I started a sweet potato also and I thought I started too late. I started seeing buds after it grew a bunch of roots. When I read up on sweet potatoes, no one said anything about the roots coming before the slips. Once they came in, you could really see it growing day by day. I was more fascinated with watching the sweet potato grow more than anything else I planted. I too have very little patience but once you see roots, watch the eyes. You will start to notice little dark purple buds come out. They then turn into green leaves. It is really pretty cool.
engineeredgarden
15 years ago
Lowraine - You can email me at engineeredgarden@att.net
I'll fix the email on my profile...

Dad has been placed on a blood thinner medication, and isn't supposed to eat any green veggie. That's all I know about it....

EG

2 questions: trellis & sweet potato

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2 questions: trellis & sweet potato

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