Unboxing and Caring for Your Sweet Potato Slips

Hi, I'm Ben from Johnny's Selected Seeds. Today we're going to look at what sweet potato slips look like coming out of the box and how best to care for them.

Open Immediately

When you first receive your sweet potato slips, you'll want to remove them from the box immediately. They are shipped very soon after they're harvested. And the longer they're in the box, the more opportunity there is for bacteria and moisture to cause rotting, which you definitely don't want ahead of planting your sweet potatoes. You'll want to remove them right from the box. They can look a little dry and wilted and a little discolored when they come out of the box, but that's all right. They come in a dormant state, which helps them last during the shipping process. Once you have opened the box, you'll want to take them out of their packaging. No cause for alarm. There will be some dead dry leaves inside, but that's all part of the process.

Holding Sweet Potato Slips

If you're not able to plant your sweet potato slips immediately, you'll just want to separate them a little bit to give them a little bit of airflow. Take some paper towels and moisten it a bit. And then wrap the roots in the moistened paper towel. Once you have the root ends wrapped in the towel, you'll want to place them upright and try to keep the foliage and the leaf ends from becoming too moist.

Make sure that you keep these moist by dipping them in water about once a day until you're able to plant them. Try to avoid getting the top part of your slip, the foliage and the non-root zone wet, as that will encourage rot. And don't moisten them too often because that will also encourage rot.

Now if it's going to be much more than a week before you're able to plant, you'll want to put these in some type of soil-less medium to hold them over until they're ready to plant. We find it's best to get a small pot and then remove the paper towel that you've been using to keep them moist. Open your roots a little bit just to encourage some airflow. Then place them in a pot of your soil-less medium.

You'll want to keep your media moistened until you're able to plant. You'll want to plant these within a week of receiving them to ensure the best viability.

Please refer to the included growing information for planting instructions and give us a call if you have any problems.

Thanks a lot for joining us today. Have a great season!

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