cynister, don't give up all of your sweet potato plants just because they're annuals. Sharing is a great idea, these are tough little guys and root pretty easily. But you can also dig up some and bring it inside, and grow it as a houseplant over the winter. I bought a gangly Blackie on sale last fall, cut it up to share with friends and kept some, and it's still doing okay... all right, my mom's is now doing better than mine but she has a greener thumb. Point is, they can make good houseplants. Mine even flowered inside once. :-) Spider mites tried to set up housekeeping but Blackie just shrugged them off with the occasional strong water shower in the sink. Likes the strongest sunlight you can give it. This is all presuming you have room indoors... I know some of us don't anymore. lol Best wishes. Terri

Will they grow? If they do nothing in 2 weeks [after transplanting] or are very weak then, they probably will not do much. I tend to get those little ones too with my order. I usually put 2 of those together. I like to soak them after they arrive in a bucket with 3 inches of water overnight [keeping the leaves up out of the water] and this gets them ready for setting out.

I don't know too much about sweet potatoes. Regular potatoes should be dug when the tops are dead. The will keep in the ground--in other words not freeze but you run the risk of too much moisture rotting the potatoes or some nasties nibbling on them. It is best to dig them and dry them. We do this in the shade on our lawn. Then my husband spreads plastic on the floor of our furnace room and leaves them for a couple of days so they are good and dry. Then he puts them in bushel baskets with a newspaper on top. They are stored on platforms in the cold cellar for the winter. If you don't have a cold cellar put them in a cool dry place raised off of the concrete. We use our own potatoes until they get too soft in early spring.

Paula, I don't believe that frost is necessary for the seed to mature. But I hate to let my plants go to seed until I've enjoyed as much okra as I can. In the past I used to wait too long before letting pods mature. They would get tough and even lose their color once the plants died. But the seed, though it looked good, did not keep its viability well until spring. It had not had time to store up the necessary reserves for that. So now, to make things simple, I simply plant my okra in two patches. One patch gets picked right up until frost. The other gets turned to seed production with the first cooler nights (can't remember if that's in August or September). This way the seed really matures before I harvest it. I can't be sure what was the cause of your problem. There are various possibilities. I would not rule out the possibility that the store bought seed may have been exposed to heat, which would harm it. Another problem with okra germination is cool soil. If the soil isn't warm the seed may rot before it germinates. BTW, this I've experienced this same issue with seed production of asparagus beans (yard long beans). To get good plump seed I have to stop picking while temps are still pretty high. If I wait till nights get cool, the seed does not mature properly, affecting future germination. George