Sow True Seeds photo
Sweet potato slips line up, ready to be planted.
Chris Smith, the community coordinator of Sow True Seed—an Asheville-based company that specializes in open-pollinated, heirloom, and organic seeds—answers common spring gardening questions in this new regular column for Smoky Mountain Living.
I’ve thought about growing sweet potatoes for a number of years, but I’m concerned about the space requirements. I’ve heard they vine all over the place. Is this true?
Sweet potatoes are typically planted in May and June from live ‘slips’ or baby plants. These slips will produce tubers under the ground and vines above the ground. It is true that sweet potato vines can be quite rambunctious, but this certainly shouldn’t be a reason not to grow them. Sweet potatoes are delicious, nutritious, and they store through the winter. Add in the fact that they are the North Carolina state vegetable, and they become a must-have crop in any vegetable garden.
With limited space, your first option would be to choose a ‘bush’ variety. The Porto Rico is a variety that maintains more of an upright shape and is less prone to vining. While this variety produces a tasty copper-skinned, orange fleshed tuber, it seems sad to limit yourself to just a handful of bush-style varieties.
Your second option is to cut back those adventurous vines. The reason the sweet potato vines spread far and wide is because, in warmer locales, the vines will send down roots and produce more tubers. In our climate we do not have enough time for these additional tubers to form, so the attempt is wasted energy. By cutting back the longer vines you focus more energy on the main tuber, control the sprawl, and harvest an edible summer green (sweet potato leaves taste great).
So, you can happily plant purple, orange, and white sweet potatoes without fear of being overrun.
I thought I wanted heirlooms, but I was told I really mean open-pollinated. If I want to save the seed, what do I want?
The term heirloom is often misused and misunderstood—indeed, this is one of the most frequently asked questions at Sow True Seed.
Open-pollinated (OP) seeds will produce a plant that will produce seeds that, if saved properly, will grow into the same plant the following season—i.e. I can save seeds from my Cherokee Purple tomatoes and expect to grow Cherokee Purple tomatoes from those seeds. This is not true of F1 hybrids, whose saved seeds will produce a range of different and unpredictable plant characteristics. As a seed saver, you should be looking for OP varieties.
So what are heirlooms? Quite simply, heirlooms are open-pollinated seeds that have been around for a long time. The exact definition varies but, in general, OP seeds that have been around since before World War II are considered heirlooms. We could think of heirlooms as old OP varieties.
I grow a mix of modern OP varieties and old OP varieties (aka heirlooms). Heirlooms offer great stories that I like to be a part of, and the mere fact of standing the test of time often means they have some great characteristics. Today’s OP varieties are being bred to combat modern-day challenges, whether that is pest-pressure, disease, climate, or something else. I love my heirloom beans, but I also love my modern OP powdery mildew-resistant cucumbers. The great thing is that I can save seed from both.
Email your gardening questions to Sow True Seed at ask@sowtrue.com.