Plant sweet-potato slips

When to do it

Within Sweet potato’s zone window with warm conditions and enough growing season.

What you need

• Healthy slips or rooted plants
• Trowel
• Water

How to do it

1. Obtain healthy named planting material and observe plant movement restrictions. Sweet-potato slips are vine shoots, not ordinary potato tubers.
2. If unrooted, place lower stem nodes into moist potting mix and keep warm and bright until rooted, or follow the supplier’s direct-planting method.
3. Prepare a sunny, draining bed with room for trailing growth. Harden protected plants before moving outside.
4. Set rooted plants around 30–45 cm apart, covering roots and lower bare nodes while keeping leaves above soil. Follow the variety’s spacing.
5. Water during establishment and guide vines away from paths. Avoid heavy nitrogen feeding that encourages excessive vine growth.

What success looks like

• Slips root and produce healthy spreading growth.

Watch out for

• Planting into cold wet soil.
• Treating sweet potato like a seed potato.

Plant guides using this technique

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