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 The Pitchfork’s survival projects, Survival Sweet Potato Planting Beds

Pitchfork © 2010
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Freely quote with attribution

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Sweet potato planting bed structure

A sweet potato planting bed is by contents not dissimilar to a planting bed for any flower, fruit, vegetable, tree, bush, or shrub that like damp feet and not wet feet, not roots in standing water - hydrangeas, roses, and blueberry come quickly to mind.

The only notable difference is that the sweet potato planting bed's gonna be humongo by comparison to the planting beds of the others, including those mentioned.

Sweet potato planting bed site

Get the sweet potato planting be in as much direct, full sun as you can manage. 

Sweet potato planting bed contents and makeup

Now planting directions and planting guidance vary considerably for sweet potatoes - moreso than any other such for any other planting.  For example -

• 9"-18" apart - Pitchfork and The Missus varied close to 12"

• 3'-5' wide - Pitchfork and The Missus stuck to 4', but experimented some along the way, by here and there staggering three rows in the 4'-wide planting bed, or berm (the staggering was intended to experiment in increasing sweet potato total yield per planting area, considering more commonly available planting areas for anything would be limited, perhaps significantly)

• 6''-18" [subsequently amended to at least 18" overall] of well-drainable planting medium - Pitchfork and The Missus added 8" of amendments in depth, but also turned existing soil on site one shovelful deep

• Use all sorts of mixes - Pitchfork and The Missus applied per plant, well mixed together -

  • 1, 50# bag of play sand

  • 1/2 bag of compost (40# bag, mushroom or cow manure)

  • 1/3 of a big, compressed bag of Sphagnum Moss,

  • 1/2, 40 pound bag of Nature's Helper or equivalent

Note:  That Pitchfork and The Missus planted two such rows of 12' long each at some distance apart, not having readily available space for a second abutting row.  In that context, again dimensions vary between sources for spacing rows, a measure for which Pitchfork and The Missus have no comment - contemplated or experienced.

Then they -

• Watered the 4'-wide berm thoroughly

• Flattened it out to its extents (i.e., not rounded or peaked)

• Completely covered the berm with a precut sheet of black polyvinyl sheet weighted at the edges to hold it in-place would that a great wind cometh