Post by macmex on Jan 1, 2021 0:32:11 GMT
I LOVE all the varieties of sweet potatoes out there, but I should clearly state that the kinds offered in the grocery store are quite good. There's nothing the matter with them. Some years I've had poor crops in the garden, due to rodents, and I've purchased sweet potatoes right after Thanksgiving. They're really inexpensive right then.
What about starting your own slips and growing from supermarket sweet potatoes? Well, there's really nothing the matter with that. You probably won't know exactly what the variety is. But I can assure you, it'll be good. They don't use inferior varieties for commercial production. If you get an inferior sweet potato at the grocery store it's more likely it's inferior because of how it's been handled than because of its variety.
I've heard that grocery store sweet potatoes have been sprayed with growth retardant, to prevent them from sprouting. The honest truth is... I'm not sure it they have. They might be slow to sprout because of the variety. What I do know is that supermarket sweets can be made to sprout.
To do so:
1. Purchase your roots a few months before you want slips.
2. Store them in a WARM location. Don't let them get chilled at all.
3. A month before you'd normally start slips, set the store bought roots on a cheap heating pad, in a warm, draft free location.
(You need a CHEAP heating pad, as others have an automatic timed shutoff.) They need to be nice and warm (about 100 F.) for a couple weeks.
This will probably wake them up.
(You need a CHEAP heating pad, as others have an automatic timed shutoff.) They need to be nice and warm (about 100 F.) for a couple weeks.
This will probably wake them up.
4. After this, proceed just as you would with any other sweet potato root used for propagation.
Anecdote:
In the 90s our family lived in Central Mexico. There I grew a garden and, of course, sweet potatoes. The only sweet potatoes available there were white or purple fleshed. So, one time when we visited the Texas border I purchased a couple of orange fleshed sweet potatoes, from the supermarket. I started slips from them and was extremely pleased with the crop. I saved roots and grew from my own slips for a couple years.
Being in the United States I don't grow from supermarket sweets, but someone out there might have reason to do it. It would be an inexpensive way to get a quantity of slips. This would buy me time while looking for a couple named varieties to grow.