Northern Sweet Potatoes...Or...
 

Okay...I've been staring at the Sand Hill order form trying to decide what to do. Zone 5 Upstate NY - Do I need to stay with Northern Assortment (early) selection or is a more General Assortment okay? By growing all early varieties, will I be missing out on some complexity in flavor? Storage issues?

I'm going to select some whites and purples too.

Last year in zone 3 it took extraordinary effort to get a harvest even with the early sweet potato variety slips. I'd stick to the earlies in zone 5.

This year I'm going to try to improve my chances by sprouting my last 2 O'Henry's myself in a few weeks. When the sprouts reach 5' long, I'm going to pot them up in potting soil under lights. That way they will already have an established root system when they go in the ground the 1st week in June, so should give me a couple weeks head start compared to bare root slips.

Thank you, Barkeater. I did order a northern collection. Did you grow on black plastic?

Reign, yes I did use black plastic landscape cloth over raised beds. It was the kind that lets water through but no weeds. Then, for 4 weeks until I harvested in early October, I covered the vines with a double layer of polyester row covers to give them more time, which helped a lot. But, it still wasn't much of a harvest.

I'm really psyched. I stuck my last 2 O'Henry's in mason jars filled with water for 2 weeks, then planted them on their sides in a shallow pot full of potting mix and put them in the furnace room where the temperature is about 84 degrees, keeping them moist. Today my first sprout broke through, exactly 4 weeks after starting them.

I have 8 nice O'Henry slips off of one sweet potato. What is nice is there are roots attached, and they're now in solo cups. I have a feeling I may have started a little too soon; these plants will be huge if I wait 4 weeks to plant them out.

I was surprised to find 2/3 of the sweet potato itself had disintegrated into mush when I tried to pull it up.