How to Grow Sweet Potatoes in Florida – The Definitive Guide
Sweet potatoes are a root crop that just love to grow vigorously and produce abundantly, making them the perfect vegetable to cultivate in hot climates. Durable and tough, like the folks of Central Florida, the vining foliage will flourish throughout extended warm seasons, resulting in bountiful harvests of large, sweet roots.
Choosing Your Backyard Vegetable Garden Site
The first step to establishing your own sweet potato bed will be to select an appropriate location. The site should receive full sun, and the soil must be well-drained. An area that tends to be soggy will negatively affect—and eventually rot—the roots before the foliage gets a chance to establish above ground.
Preparing the Garden Bed for Backyard Vegetables
Now that you’ve found an adequate site to plant, it’s time to design a happy home for your sweet potatoes. Not a very finicky vegetable, they will grow happily as long as the soil stays warm. Still, there are a few techniques and practices to keep in mind while preparing the bed to ensure healthy, high-yielding crops.
Allow the soil to warm up for a few weeks after the threat of frost has passed. Plot out your space and till the soil well. This can be done with a motor tiller, shovel, cultivator, or garden fork. Just make sure the bed has a fine consistency without any rocks or big lumps. This will ease the flow of air and water and ultimately promote root growth.
Now is the time to amend the soil with fertilizer or compost. If the bed is particularly sandy and loose, some organic matter should be incorporated to help hold water. Florida gardeners will find that their sandy, well-drained soil provides ideal growing conditions for this southern staple.
Planting beds should be formed into long mounds. 8 inches high and 1 foot wide will be the ideal dimensions for growing perfect sweet potatoes. The top of each mound can then be flattened to prepare for planting. Space mounds 3 feet apart.
Growing Sweet Potatoes From Slips
Sweet potatoes aren’t typically grown from seed. The easiest way to grow your own patch is to start from slips, which can be found at most nurseries, online seed companies, and supermarkets as well. Slips are bare root shoots sprouted from seed stock.
Because they are living plants with exposed roots, slips should be planted as soon as possible. All slips, even of the same variety, may look different in terms of color, size, and visible roots but will all thrive when provided favorable conditions.
Slips should be planted in the evening to avoid wilting under the hot sun. Set them into the mounds about 3 inches deep and spaced 10 to 12 inches apart. Cover the roots completely and pat the soil firmly. All leaves should be exposed and above the ground.
Immediately after planting, slips should be watered well. To ease the stress of transplanting, give plenty of water the first few days. It’s important that the soil maintains a high moisture level during this time in order for the roots to get established. After heavy watering the first few days, sweet potatoes will require about an inch of water per week.
Sweet potatoes should mature in 100 to 120 days, depending on the variety. Stop watering the plants 3 or 4 weeks before they’re ready to dig. This will improve the texture and flavor of the roots.
Conclusion
Starting sweet potatoes from slips is the easiest, most efficient way to produce your own homegrown delicious roots. Gardeners in Central Florida should take heart that their specific region, climate, and zone provide the optimal conditions for growing this essential vegetable.
We hope you enjoyed learning about how to grow sweet potatoes in Florida. Tell us about your sweet potato ventures—or favorite sweet potato recipes—in the comments below!
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