Gardening Quick Tip #12 - How to Grow Your Own Sweet Potato Slips

To grow sweet potato slips using the jar method, begin with a healthy sweet potato. Find a jar that's large enough to comfortably suspend the sweet potato inside without it touching the bottom. Insert toothpicks around the midsection of the sweet potato to create a support structure, or use a wooden skewer like I did, allowing you to position it halfway into the jar with one end submerged in water. Typically, the pointed end should be submerged, as that’s where roots are more likely to develop, while the rounder end faces upward for sprouting.
Place the jar in a warm location with plenty of indirect sunlight and keep an eye on the water level, ensuring the submerged portion of the sweet potato remains covered. Replace the water regularly, ideally every few days, to prevent stagnation and maintain freshness. Over the course of a few weeks, the sweet potato should start producing slips, which are small green shoots that emerge from its upper end.
Once the slips grow to around four to six inches in length, carefully twist them off from the sweet potato and place their bases into a separate container of water to encourage root development. After a few days to a week, the slips will develop strong roots, and they’ll be ready for planting in soil to begin their journey to becoming full-grown sweet potato plants.