Over-wintering batatas
mikeymustard
Posts: 495
in Plants
I've finally pulled up the ornamental sweet potato I grew this year, I've got a couple of cuttings thatve struck but I'd like to try growing a plant or two from the tubers I've recovered. What's the best way to store these?
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
if you are wanting to grow slips from the tubers i'd start early if i were you - they take their time.
you have to put the root end of the tuber in a jar of water (but not touching the bottom of the jar) - this a little more difficult than it sounds as sometimes you can't tell which end is which (i had one in a jar for a year before i decided to put it the other way up - and got some slips). i followed a few you tube vids on how to do it but i think they were from somewhere warmer and brighter than here. i would say that starting them in january would not be early enough! i still have a tuber with slips from last year on a window sill - and my entire surviving crop grown this summer, with what i'm now counting as a slip for next year is in a jug in the kitchen (including the pathetic harvest of mini tubers).
you say they are ornamental sweet potatoes - do you mean ordinary morning glories or that you don't expect to get eating sized tubers?
by the way, mine produced no flowers, either.
they may do better in a poly tunnel in this country.
BTW these are ornamental in the sense of being grown for their black heart-shaped foliage as a container plant
good luck.