07/15/2026
Sometimes, certain things turn out to be much simpler than we make them out to be in our head. Case in point, the last few years I've bought my sweet potato slips. This year I have had trouble finding them in stores, but I still have potatoes from last year in a box in our basement and they were putting out vines. I fully understand the science, but from my own experience, trying to get certain plants to root in water isn't always successful so I just continued to put it off. After walking by that box regularly, I finally decided to pop off a few of the longest vines and stuck them in a small jar of clean water. These things started sending out roots almost overnight! I tried a few more, and sure enough, this is one plant that makes propagating so easy that anyone can do it. They want to grow!
While I'll be planting my slips directly into their bed to grow, I potted a few into this eight-cell tray for another market vendor who had mentioned looking for slips a while back. Thankfully, we still have plenty of time for these to grow into a harvest that will hopefully last through winter.
This makes last year's purchase of slips even more cost effective, as I spent about $15 total and harvested around sixty-five pounds of sweet potatoes, and now that same purchase is providing for this year's harvest too! 🍠💲🫰🏼
What's something about gardening that you have found to be much easier than you originally thought?
