Mimi Sue's Cottage

A home is much more than a house built of lumber, brick, or stone. A home is made of love, sacrifice, and respect. We are responsible for the homes we build. We must build wisely, for eternity is not a short voyage. There will be calm and wind, sunlight and shadows, joy and sorrow. But if we really try, our home can be a bit of heaven here on earth. Thomas S Monson







Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Starting Sweet Potato Vines

 
Last winter I read this post on the Always Fixin Never Sittin blog.
 
I thought it was a great idea.  I love to plant sweet potato vines in my window boxes and planters.  They have such pretty lime green foliage and are so easy to grow.
 
So I went to the grocery store and bought some sweet potatoes from the produce department, brought them home, stuck some toothpicks in them, placed them in canning jars filled with water, and let them sit in direct sun. 
 
And then I waited.
 
And waited.
 
 
 

 
And in about a month I saw little tiny, hair-like roots.
 
And then I waited.
 
And waited.
 



And waited.
 
For like three months!
 
And then, finally, I found a tiny leaf.
 
And then a few more leaves.
 
And then I had to wait til May 15th when it's safe to plant them outside. 
 
I planted the whole potato with just a little bit of it sticking out of the dirt.

And here they are today.
 




 
I started with four.
 
One got some kind of mold on it and one didn't produce any roots or leaves.
 
But I did end up with two pretty nice little sweet potato vines.
 
The foliage isn't lime green.
 
And I probably could have bought two nice little sweet potato vines with the money I spent on the four sweet potatoes.
 
 


4 comments:

Primitive Stars said...

Morning, love the idea and they look beautiful, Francine.

Kathleen Grace said...

Lol, isn't that the way it goes? I was looking at this all excited that I have a couple sweet potatoes in the potato bin that I was going to sprout, but it sounds like I wouldn't get anything from them until it was too late to plant them outside! Maybe I'll start them around January next year.

Art and Sand said...

Oh, I need to give sweet potato vines a try.

Yours are lovely,

Unknown said...

This is so cool, I'm very impressed. When do you think you'll be able to get sweet potato fries?!

It wouldn't have been half as cool if you had just bought the plants. I was admiring some of these just the other day.