Weekend Gardener: Grow your own sweet potatoes
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – “Sweet potatoes are one of those highly nutritious vegetable crops that we can grow, but there’s a little bit of prep work that has to be done in advance,” said Jayla Fry with Texas A&M AgriLife.
Fry says sweet potatoes grow well in our area.
“We grow sweet potatoes from slips and you can purchase them typically online or you can actually grow them yourself, the slip yourself, by purchasing from a supermarket just a regular sweet potato,” said Fry. “You clean it up really well. You can cut it in half and then you suspend it in water until it starts to grow.”
Next, you take the growth off and put it in water.
“Then roots will form and that’s what you would eventually plant,” said Fry. “Then, of course, these are kind of a long term crop and so you’re going to have them for a while. Keep them well-watered. You plant them in a good, well-drained soil, fertilize well and then you’ll have your own crop of sweet potatoes.”
For more information, you can download this PDF with details on the growing process and recipes. Click here.
