Edweather, you might have gotten sweet potatoes that were treated so they wouldn't sprout or you didn't wait long enough for them to sprout. One of mine started growing little teeny sprouts right away, another one took about a week longer and the one did nothing. I forgot about the one that did nothing as it was in my sewing room, but after a couple of weeks it was even sprouting. And I noticed that once they did get started, they grew very quickly. Annew21, I'm going to keep a close eye on my sweets when we start into October. I'm between 75-85 miles south of wayne_5 so I will watch his posts. Thank you for your advice, too. That's what I love about all the Gardenweb forums I'm in - so many people contribute their knowledge. I know a lot about veggie growing and some other things, but sweet potatoes are a new challenge to me that I think will be a success due to the help I've gotten here. My motto: The older I get the more I realize I have to learn!

I planted those same 3 varieties May 13 and dug very large new potatoes off the RN and YG last week. The Pontiacs are still blooming, but with the dry weather are starting to wither (RN are almost dead, and YG are still looking good). I'd check how large the RN are, and you *have* to try the YG as new potatoes, though they're probably pretty large right now. if the skins rub off easily (like if you *look* at the YG!), the tubers are still growing and you can leave the plants longer to get larger potatoes (let the plants die completely and then leave the poatoes a couple weeks past that) for storage. If the skins are pretty tough, then the plants are close to dead and the tubers have stopped growing, won't be long for storage potatoes, you can even chop off the foliage now to hasten the process. I'd be interested in knowing how many/how large your potatoes are - looks like mine got stressed to begin with, then developed large tubers (but not many) when I started watering during the 90 degree days. Since you planted earlier I'm going to assume yours will be larger than mine, but want to know if you get a lot or few, and if they're clustered shallowly near the stem or are farther away.

One person wrote after the yard guy was hired, and I was pretty upset by the reply of a local bamboo person who suggested that I could dig everything up and give it to her for her fundraiser and told me that my home would probably not sell anyway. . I took my fave plants, and the yard person I hired when no one responded (in time) loves plants so at least a bunch got good homes. (In between the posting and the hiring of the nice yard guy, there was a garden agreement with a CL responder which is probably best left alone, lol. The yard guy was happy, he got $300-$400 worth of really nice bamboo plants. He has a little left in the back yard to do and has his eye on some plants there, there are a few roses left back there I hope he takes. I gifted him with the wheelbarrow and other stuff and he is going to help me take care of the yard in the new place, so at least I found him, he seems like he is reliable and a real go getter and his biz partner does carpentry, so they are good people to know. I've started putting in a garden on a much smaller scale already at the new place, so I feel good about that. Thanks for writing! It helped to talk about it all. Moving is very stressful.

g'dau ab, not sure if you are talking wholly about sweet potatos or normal spuds? with teh sweeties all we do is feret around when we find a tuber we remove it and stick that vine back in the ground where it will again take root, that way you oly take tubers when you need them so storage does not become a problem. now with normal spuds up here we would harvest when the plant dies around september/october after growing from around march, but again it won't affect much if you ferret around and pull of the biggest tubers. len Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page