Rooting Sweet Potato Shoots

I start my sweet potatoes in jars on the window sill.   I've seen other ways, but this takes very little counter space and works just great.  

I just shove sweet potatoes into jars, pointed side down, with part of it sticking out of the top of the jar.  If you can find potatoes with pink bumps already visible, then use those - they'll sprout faster from the top.  Leave the pink bumps at the top, out of the water.

In time, little pink sprouts pop up from the top and white roots show up under the water.  

In a couple of weeks, or when things get really warm, the sprouts will grow pretty quickly, and leaves will open up. 

If you can find a jar deep enough, just put the whole potato in deeper so the sprouts are under water, then they'll form roots at the base of each sprout.   

If you don't have really deep jars, don't worry.   Carefully twist the starts off the potato when they're a few inches tall and have a leaf open.   

Then put the sprouts in a water in a jar.  Soon they'll develop roots on their own.   

Easy squeezy!

Once you see roots, you can plant them.   Make sure you are well past the last frost date for your area.  Sweet potatoes like warm soil and hot weather. 

How to Root Your Own Sweet Potato Starts

This is the time of year to start your sweet potatoes.   It's easier than you think.

You need: sweet potatoes, water and jars.

Put the sweet potatoes in the jars.  Fill the jars with water.  Put them in the window. Let them root.

They'll send out roots like these.   The warmer they are, the faster they'll root.

I've had mine in a window and it has not been warm.  The roots have been slow to show, but they're all rooting.  As soon as it warms up, they'll show a lot more action.  

They'll shoot up leaves like these.


And in June [in zone 5], you can stick them in the ground.    I cut them up so that each start has leaves and roots.

Sweet potatoes love warm. Wait until after the last spring frost to even think about planting them.