Starting your own Sweet Potato Slips

Finding sweet potato plants in nurseries can be hit or miss. My local nursery Logan’s gets a shipment of them each spring, but they go very fast. Not knowing if I would find plants, I decided to start my own.

I picked out a potato, stuck one bumpy end in a small jar and filled it with water. In a couple days, sprouts were forming.

After a week, I added wooden skewers to the potato to separate it from the rim of the jar because the many sprouts were getting stuck against the glass. One month later, I had a handful of slips ready to be planted. The slips were easy to snap off the potato, which looked like I could stick it back in water to start more slips with.

While in Lynchburg, Va, I found a hardware store that sold sweet potato plants and picked up eight. It’s a good thing I did, because the slips took longer than I expected. I probably should have started them back in March instead of April so they would be ready for the traditional planting date around here, Good Friday.