Sweet potatoes love heat and need a long growing season. To grow slips, I hang a sweet potato in a glass of water with toothpicks holding it in place, but it takes a month or more for the slips to sprout and grow long enough to break off. These slips are then put in another glass of water to grow roots, which also takes a couple weeks. Finally, these are planted in rows of hilled up soil (when the nights are consistently in the 50's), spaced about 12" apart. I use a black woven ground cover to cover the hilled rows (about 12-15" high) and put this in place at least a week before planting to help warm the soil. I plant them here at the very end of May and leave them in the ground to grow until the first frost, but before a hard freeze. The tubers get large in the last month of growing, but can be damaged if they are in cool/cold temps for too long and won't store as well.
You can also grow slips by laying a tuber in sand and covering it halfway and keeping the sand wet. There might be other ways that I don't know about.
I don't think that trying to bury them and grow them like regular potatoes would work.
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