One of the dicotyledonous plants that belong to the Convolvulaceae family, sweet potato is a very nutritious root vegetable.
Cultivating sweet potatoes is an enjoyable and rewarding hobby. In order to learn how to plant sweet potatoes in your backyard or in your garden, it is best to start with knowing the basic guidelines for cultivating the plants.
To avoid experiencing troubles, it is important to get the materials that you will need before you start.
Below are the simple steps that you will need if you want to know how to plant sweet potatoes.
Materials Needed
The materials needed for cultivating the vegetables are not hard to find. The materials include a shovel, a spading fork, watering cans, and sand.
Most important of all, you need fresh sweet potatoes. After getting all the materials, you can proceed with the instructions for cultivating the plant.
Instructions
Choose a spacious place in your house. Prepare a bed of sand and place the sweet potatoes in the sand.
Make sure that you cover the plants with moist sand. Let the vegetables stand in the bed of sand for four months to six months.
Remove sprouts or slips from the vegetables and let the slips stay in a place at room temperature for three days to four days. As soon as you see root hairs in the vegetables, you can start cultivating the plants.
Create a soil mound with a measurement of 12 inches in width and 12 inches in height. Plant the sprouts in the soil mound.
When planting the sprouts, it is best to allot enough space in between the sprouts. Avoid planting the root crops in sandy soil.
To ensure that the sprouts will survive, it is important to water the slips regularly until the plants are established. Remove weeds around the plants.
You can start harvesting the root crops when the vines cover the ground where you planted the slips.
Discard the vines a week before harvesting the crops. Use the spading fork to dig the vegetables.
Additional Tips and Warnings
Do not plant the root crops during frost since sweet potatoes do not grow in places with cold temperatures.
Most of the varieties of root crops can be harvested after four months of planting. You can store the vegetables in a cool and dry place for five months after harvesting them.
Get a clean brush and use it to remove dirt from the root crops. Do not clean the vegetables with water if you plan to store them since this can cause the crops to spoil.