Growing Sweet Potatoes
Sweet Potato Trial
by Lesley & David Rands
Always looking to do something different and to keep our gardening skills up to scratch, we have decided this year to try and grow some sweet potatoes. We thought others might be interested in our attempts... We knew nothing about growing these vegetables and read up on the RHS web site:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0507/sweetpotatoes.asp
Having left it a little late to order (mid April), we did not have a very big choice of varieties when we visited the Thompson & Morgan web site. 10 Beauregard 'slips' at a cost of £13.00 including postage and package were bought. The slips arrived last Friday ....looking very, very sorry for themselves. I must admit I was most disappointed after waiting for a month for these plants & not knowing quite what to expect. We will start our diary here and keep you all posted on the progress and hopefully the end results.
Friday 15th May
According to the delivery note, the slips had been despatched on 13th May via 1st class post, but they did not arrive until the 15th and were in a very poor condition. There was no root protection apart from a polythene bag and no additional moisture to keep them fresh on their travels.
The instructions told us to put the slips into water for 2 or 3 hours on receipt:
Followed by planting into deep training pots - or improvised paper rolls!!
A very limp, sad sight!! Neither of us think that these plants will survive -this maybe a very short diary...........
Sunday 17th May
A glimmer of hope..some of the slips have started to firm up and are standing upright a little. Fingers crossed!! The instructions are to keep them in pots either on a window sill or in a propergator for three weeks.
Sunday 24th May
These plants are going to keep us guessing for a little while longer. The leaves have died and the stems are semi rigid. I unrolled a paper pot and saw some signs of new roots growing from the stem. We will just have to wait and see....
Tuesday 2nd June
Success!! 7 out of the 10 plants appear to have signs of new growth
The three remaining plant were unwrapped and also showed some encouraging root growth. Seems we were both wrong about these plant!!
Tuesday 9th June
We are going on holiday for a week so the healthy plants are going in the ground! 7 out of the 10 plants are showing some signs of growth and stand a better chance in the soil rather than on our window sill!!
Sunday 2nd August
The weeks are flying by so I thought it was time for an update! A full refund has been given by Thompson & Morgan - good job too, as only three out of the original 10 have survived. This I am sure is due to the lack of attention to the slips for the postal trip. The remaining plants are looking reasonably healthy and somewhat different to anything we have grown before....
Time will tell?