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Why grow sweet potatoes
When planted at the right time in the right location sweet potatoes are simple and fun to grow.
Requiring less attention than some other long season vegetables such as heirloom tomatoes or winter squash.
This plant is a welcome addition to any sunny low input, prairie garden. Luckily major pests and diseases that can often plague southern sweet potato producers are not considered a threat in our hemisphere. As a result sweet potatoes are easy to raise organically and ask very little special treatment.
Once you have harvested and cured your sweets successfully, they are considered to have the longest shelf life of any vegetable. Lasting up to a year at a cool room temperature makes them a very valuable plant to grow.
Welcome to the 2023 sweet potato season.
Update April 19: Sorry for the delay. We have opened our web store. Happy growing!
Locally producing these young plants on a small scale means that we can ensure that they are of the highest quality and provide the best chance of success in your garden.
Our vines are always raised free from chemicals and individually cared for until the time is right.
During mid MAY they will be hand selected and made available for purchase from local retailers. Sweet potato slips ordered online will be delivered by Canada post when weather is suitable in late May.
What is a Sweet Potato?
Sweet potatoes come in hundreds of varieties ranging from white to orange and even purple. They are considered to be one of the oldest cultivated vegetables and some varieties can take up to 140 days to mature.
Often wrongly labeled as yams, sweet potatoes are not at all related to yams. True yams are typically grown only in Africa and are often used as animal fodder. Yams can grow extremely large, be very starchy and do not offer any of the sweet flavor profile we are used to.
Similar to carrots, it is the nutrient filled root that we cherish rather than an actual tuber such as a potato.
How do sweet potatoes grow?
Sweet potatoes grow in groups of up to a dozen in the soil underneath the vine much like a potato. However they are not related to potatoes in anyway.
A sweet potato is actually a member of the morning glory family so it's leaves and blooms look very similar to the familiar vining flower.
Sweet potato plants only stand about 8 inches tall but do have vines that sprawl out about 4 feet away from the main stem. These vines are not like cucumbers and have no way of fixing themselves with any sort of tendrils. They cover the top of the soil and when they are happy they can also root into the soil anywhere along the stem as with a squash vine or tomato plant.
