Planting Sweet Potatoes



Place your sweet potato plants in a pail with some water after they arrive in the mail

Sweet Potato Sets

When your sweet potato plants (sets) arrive don't be alarmed if they apear very wilted.  Simply place them in a pail (with a few inches of water in the bottom) for a few days and you will notice the foliage perk up and the plants become healthly looking. 

Soil is prepared and the furrows are ready for the sweet potatoes to be planted

Preparing the soil

Each row should be about 2 or 3 feet apart.  You will need to mound each row creating a furrow and each furrow should be 8 to 12 inches high (see picture above). 

Sweet Potatoes have just been planted

Planting

Start in 1 row and arrange the Sweet Potato Sets before actually planting.  The potato sets should be planted 12 to 18 inches apart.  Use either a garden trowel or a larger stick to make a hole and then place 1 sweet potato set in each hole and water slightly (make sure you cover the pinkish roots and tightly pack the dirt but do not cover the bud or base of the leaves) .  The spacing of your first row will help you when you plant the next row.  In the second row you will plant your first set by going up six inches from the beginning of the row

- when looking at the first row this would actually be in between the first 2 plants.  If you were to draw a line between the first 2 rows it would look like a zig-zag line (see the picture below - I place some garden twine down to demonstrate).  Then the third line would be spaced like the first row and the fourth row would be spaced like the second (and so on until you are finished planting).  The reason for this zig-zag planting is because the sweet potato vines can become a tangled mess by the end of the season.  If you plant in the way I described these vines will grow inbetween each other plant and will not become twisted.

If you were to draw a line between the first 2 rows it would look like a zig-zag line.

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