Gardening Tips & Tricks : How to Grow a Sweet Potato Plant

[GardenToolCaddy]

Thanks for the advice!

[TheJeffofalltrades]

Sweet potatoes are not grown from seeds they are grown from the root crop, just like potatoes, also I live in zone 5 and I grow 50 plants plus every year and they do fine.

[growitlikegranddad]

wow... "a beautiful flowering plant"?

Sweet potatoes will never bloom the first year, so they will NEVER bloom anywhere it frosts. What you show is not really a sweet potato. It IS an ipomoea, just not one that makes potatoes. This plant you show is called the sweet potato ivy in most parts of the USA.

While a pretty climbing plant, it is a real stretch to call it a sweet potato. sorry

[growitlikegranddad]

vawllms...

everything you say is correct. The reason we don't get blooms on our sweet potatoes is the season is too short. The same plant in zone 10 will grow for several years and only bloom the second year...they make lots of potatoes the first year but never bloom (just like you say). Maybe you SHOULD post a video of your sweet potatoes. I would love to see it, too. Most of the folks here have no idea.

[paintball227]

i grow sweet potatoes and mine dont have light colored leaves like hers and dont flower. Idk what she is growing

[muktismom]

please clarify - everyone is calling yams a sweet potato. sweet potatoes grow off slips.

i wish people would starting using the correct references.

[growitlikegranddad]

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but "yams" are not grown in the western hemisphere very often. because the conditions are not correct. True yams are native to Africa and are a woody bush. I know that many places in the USA call the orange sweet potato a yam, but it is really just a sweet potato. True sweet potatos are all colors...white to dark red (pink and orange included). As stated by vawllms...this "sweet potato" depicted is really not a bearing potato...but a flower.

[muktismom]

thank you so very much for the clarification! All my life I have seen "Yams" and "Sweet Potatoes" in the markets. Every Christmas we eat "yams" - with marshmallows in casserole. BTW - Yams are much less expensive in the grocery stores than sweet potatoes. Leading to more confusion.

I am really happy "you are the one to break it to me" - your snide wording was not necessary.