Buy Sweet Potatoes Now To Grow Your Own In The Spring

Oct 05, 2016

Sweet potatoes are a fun crop to grow...

They are a plant that likes warm weather. We certainly have had lots of warm weather the last few summers so maybe it is time for you to try sweet potatoes in your garden. In addition to being delicious, they are also highly nutritious.

You can purchase sweet potato plants, also call slips, from seed catalogues, nurseries, local greenhouses, or you could start your own. It is easy to start your own if you know a few facts about sweet potato plants. The potatoes that you will use to get your slips from must be stored over-winter in a location that stays around sixty degrees. So it is a good idea to purchase the sweet potatoes this fall.

Move the potatoes to a place that is about 85 degrees for a few weeks about six weeks before you plan to plant the slips into the garden. After a couple weeks you will see the sprouts start to emerge from the skin. After the sprouts have started, move the potatoes to an area that is around seventy-five degrees.

Cover them with two to three inches of loose potting soil or sand. Keep the soil moist and exposed to good light. As the shoots grow, they will develop roots that will help the slips get off to a good start when they are planted in the garden. The shoots are ready to be harvested when they are about 6” inches tall and have some nice roots. In late May or early June, reach down into the soil and break the shoots off as close to the potato as possible. This will ensure that you get enough roots. Plant the slips into the garden immediately.

Another method that also works well is to put a sweet potato in a jar with water and hold it up with tooth picks. Have enough water in the jar to cover about a third to half of the potato. Place the potato in a warm sunny place to initiate sprouting. When the sprouts are about six inches tall, break them off and put them in a couple of inches of water to encourage rooting. Once the slips have roots, they are ready to go to the garden.

Plant the slips about a foot and a half apart in the row. The vines grow to be about five feet wide so give them some room. I usually partially cover the young slips for a couple of days to help them acclimate to the garden.

There are not many insects or diseases that will attack sweet potato plants in your garden. Deer like to eat the leaves so you may have to put some type of barrier up. Rodents will sometimes eat a few of the potatoes once they form later in the summer.

Sweet potatoes need about the same fertility as tomatoes. The fertilizer should be applied a couple weeks after planting. Keep the weeds out and be ready to water the plants if it gets dry.
Sweet potatoes are easily damaged by frost. Dig the potatoes before the first fall frost. Dig them carefully. Most of the potatoes will be at the crown of the plant but there will be a few that form farther out. Store your harvest at fifty-five to sixty degrees.

Source: psu.edu

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.