…and teach little ones about plants and roots!
VIEW MY FOLLOW UP POST ON HOW TO ROOT A SWEET POTATO HERE!
What you need:
1 sweet potato (a regular russet potato will work too!)
Toothpicks
A glass of water
For rooting, you are better off buying organic since some potatoes are treated with a growth retardant in order to stop them from rooting or growing “eyes” while they are sitting in the grocery store. This increases their shelf life and, in my opinion, is another reason to buy organic… I don’t want to eat growth retardants.
What to do:
First, stick 3-4 toothpicks around the center of the sweet potato:
Place it in the glass. the toothpicks should rest of the end of the glass holding the sweet potato up so it is not touching the bottom of the glass:
Fill your glass up with water so about 1/3 to 1/4 of the sweet potato is submerged in the water:
Anywhere from a few days to a week or two you should start to see roots sprout from the submerged part of the sweet potato:
After a while longer, you should see stems (and if you leave it long enough, leaves) sprout out of the top of your sweet potato until you have something that looks like this:
Keep it in a warm sunny window and keep adding water as needed.
If you would like to grow your sweet potato for the vines alone,once you have a good amount of white roots established, you can leave it in a container of water or plant your potato in some soil. Sweet potatoes do well in all types of soil. Make sure the whole potato and all the roots are underneath the soil. If you are planting in a pot, make sure you the soil can drain well, otherwise your sweet potato may rot.
Water and provide sunlight as usual.
If you would like to plant sweet potatoes for, well, more sweet potatoes, break off the little branches that grew out of the top of the sweet potato at the base (these are called slips) and plant them into the soil. Sweet potatoes need a good long, warm growing season so start your sprouts in the winter time and plant them in the spring once the danger of frost has past.
Once the green plant part of your sweet potato dies back (usually around the time the first frost will return) you can harvest your sweet potatoes which, if all went well, should have multiplied!
Now go sprout some tubers!
Happy Planting! 
VIEW MY FOLLOW UP POST ON HOW TO ROOT A SWEET POTATO HERE!
im doing this right now
Make sure the potato is really organic. Find one at your local Farmers Market or vegetable stand. There is a real difference in the growth rate.
I bought two at the grocery store and they are going crazy, got beautiful green vines everywhere, at $5.00 for a small pot of them this is much cheaper
That is great! Glad to eat it is working well for you! I just planted a bunch of slips that sprouted from the farmers market sweet potato I rooted
I would like to print out these instructions, Please.
I’ve had good success just cutting off a portion of the sweet potato. Look for an end or spot where it is starting to sprout in your pantry. Cut off about a golf ball size portion containing the sprouts. Put it directly into the soil and water every few days. It will root there and make a very nice vine.
That is so great to do when the weather has warmed up already! I usually root them indoors when it is still pretty cold outside so they can get a head start. Thank you for sharing!
I tried this twice. The stems grew but the leaves were itty bitty? What went wrong?
Are they getting enough sunlight? Once the stems sprout up you can cut them off and plant them but make sure you give them plenty of water. Sometimes I cut the slips (the stems) off and place them in water to root them a little before I plant them. My guess is that your sweet potato leaves aren’t growing because they lack something- either sunlight or some kind of nutrients to help them grow. If they are getting plenty of sunlight and still just in water try adding a little plant food to the water or plant them in soil. Also make sure the plant is warm enough. If it is a little chilly or you have an AC running nearby it may hold back growth. Hope that helps!
This explains why something so easy as growing a sweet potato WAS easy when I was a child in the 60′s and now it has become impossible to do as an adult! That dang treated potato will sit in the water and do nothing! Well, OK, it does ROT, but nothing else happens. THANK YOU!!!
I it because they spray everything now with that awful “bud nip” to stop the potatoes from sprouting in the store….preserver mine took three months to sprout from the supermarket….organic took one month.
hi…question. my girlfriend gave me some clippings of the greens of her sweet potato plant. i put them in water and waited until they had a good root and then planted them in soil. do you think i will be sucessful growing a sweet potato that way without the slip??
As long as you have a good root establishment, it should work. It may just take a little longer. Depending on where you live, It may be a little late to plant them and get an actually sweet potato as they need a long growing season. At the least, you can get a nice green potato plant for now and, depending on how harsh your winters are, maybe you will get a sweet potato by next season if the plantt doesn’t completely die off in the winter. Hope that helps!
I’d recommend submerging the sweet potato in a dark container with water. Roots don’t like daylight and I am certain that results would happen a lot quicker if the roots got to grow in the dark.
Thanks for the tip! That does make a lot of sense
I tried this recently and left the potatoe in my window for 3 wks. It never sprouted and actually rotted instead – glad to see that it may have been the growth retardent and I’M NOT retarded. lol – will try again soon!
that’s just wrong, saying : glad to see that it may have been the growth retardent and I’M NOT retarded. lol
I have done this before with great success. I purchased the organic sweet potatoes from the grocery store, used the toothpick method to keep them 1/2 way in a canning jar and then put them under grow lights. As the shoots became a good size, I broke the growing shoots off, set them in water until they grew shoots and planted those. Ended up with a pretty good harvest of sweet potatoes.
You mention shoots…do you mean the part of the plant before it becomes leafy?
Yes, the shoots of slips are the green, leafy stems that will begin to emerge from the potato. Let them get well established the cut or break them off at the base. You can root the slips by placing them in water if it is still too early to plant outside or just plant the slips right in the ground and keep them well watered.
I have a mason jar with a sweet potato going, tons of roots and long vine climbing up my blind…….the leaves are drooping an the top of my potato looks tobe rotting……thinking about cutting the top off and planting the rest in soil. Think this will work?
If you have enough roots, you can give it a try!
I had a sweet potato plant that was successful when I tried that approach… I didn’t get many sweet potatoes from it but I had beautiful vines growing for a while 
I am interested in planting them for more potatoes. You mentioned planting the slips. Are these the green leafy parts at the top? Not quite sure what you mean?
Yes, the slips are the green, leafy parts that sprout from the potato. Break them off at the base (where they are sprouting out from the potato) and place them in water until they root and then plant them in the ground or just plant them straight in the ground depending how cold it is outside.
Very cool!!
That’s going to save some money this summer. Instead of buying the vines for my containers, I can grow them, thanks!
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