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How to increase soil temp (for growing sweet potatoes

snowathletesnowathlete Posts: 138
in Fruit & veg

I'm growing some sweet potatos. Never done it before but saw them in B&Q today. I don't normally buy my plants from B&Q but went there to get compost and saw these. They were £3 a plant, but at the checkout they turned out to be £1. Bargain.

I know they need warm soil. I'm growing in a large rubber/plastic container. The sides are quite thick so i think it will insulate it well. I obviously drilled drainage holes in the bottom.

I've put a black plastic bin liner on top of the soil to help increase the heat, but I'm thinking what else I can do.I

I figure adding some kind of mulch below the black plastic might help, ubt I don't know what. Must be cheap! I have some spare laminate flooring underlay and I was wondering if that might be suitable. What do you reckon?

I'm also thinking of spray painting the outside of the tub black with some cheap spray from Wilkos. The tub is currently bright pink! I figure it should help absorb the heat from the sun.

I'm wondering if getting some plastic sheeting and putting it over the top of the tub might create a mini greenhouse effect. What do you reckon?


Any other ideas to increase the heat?

Cheers

Joel

Posts

  • bekkie hughesbekkie hughes Posts: 5,294
    Sweet potatoes are often grown through a layer of black plaatic, so thats a good idea, fresh horse muck will create heat as it rots down, have a look at hot beds image
  • SwissSueSwissSue Posts: 1,447

    I'm growing two sweet potatoes in my raised bed but as it get lots of sun am just leaving them to it. A couple of years ago I planted one in a terracotta pot with flowers as decoration and to my amazement found tubers when I emptied it out in autumn. So I would suggest perhaps painting the tub black would be sufficient and give it some blood, fish and bone fertilizer. Keep it in a sunny spot and water well but don't drown it. Good luck!

  • bekkie hughesbekkie hughes Posts: 5,294
    They are much better these days, i stupidly tried them on my allotment about 12 years ago, before they were widely grown- not good! They have made varieties that are much more suitable to our climate. I intend to try again next year.

    Please post pics at harvest time image
  • FleurisaFleurisa Posts: 779

    I wonder if they've got any plants at my local b&q, I'd love to grow sweet potatoes. Will try and remember to go after work

  • snowathletesnowathlete Posts: 138

    It's overcast here today but when I went out a little while ago the soil was definately warmer in the sweet potatoes than the real potatoes in the next container. All I've done so far is use the black plastic on top. So that is reasurring. I may not bother spraying the container now, being a flexible pot I'm a little worried it might crack and then look real messy and ugly.

    I'm going to try using warm (not hot) water instead of cold water with them.

    Hot beds look really clever, I like the idea of that.

    I'll post at harvest time. September/October by the looks of things.

  • bekkie hughesbekkie hughes Posts: 5,294
    Sorry if my first post was a little curt! Im not good at late nights image

    Really interested to see how it goes image
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