Michelle,

If it is any comfort, I feel like I am always behind too. Then, if I ever catch up and actually am 'on time', I feel like I planted early! It always seems to rain at the wrong time.

Gary's plants are the best and will tolerate being held a while before being planted. I am assuming you opened up the package and removed any plastic bags used to hold the slips. What you do from this point is up to you. There are three ways I've held sweet potato plants in the past when it was much too wet at planting time. Here they are:

1) I labeled individual plastic cups with the name of each variety if growing more than one variety, filled each cup slightly over half-full with water, and placed the slips in them. The slips continued to form more roots during the few days they were sitting in the water. I had them either in dappled shade or partial shade so they would not lose the ability to cope with sunlight. Had I kept them inside for a few days, I would have had to harden them off so they wouldn't sunburn when transplanted into the ground. This is the method I usually use if I believe I'll be holding slips about a week before I can plant them.

2) When the soil was much, much, much too wet and I wasn't even sure how long it would be before it dried up, I used individual plastic Solo cups in the 18 or 20 oz. size, poked drainage holes in them, filled them about 3/4s full with a high-quality soil-less potting soil and 'planted' the slips in them, one slip per cup. You can set them pretty deeply in the soil in the cup because they'll root along the buried stem. Keep them moist but not soggy and they'll hold for a couple of weeks or longer this way. Once again, make sure they are not in total shade because you don't want them to lose the ability to cope with sunlight. This is the method I usually use if I feel like I'll be holding the slips more than a week, and I've used it for up to 4 weeks, although it would be preferable to not hold them more than a couple of weeks.

3) I have filled a window box with lava sand (you buy it in bags as a soil amendment and it looks like crushed up lava rocks) and 'heeled in' the slips temporarily. This involves just poking a hole in the lava sand with my finger, sticking one slip in the hole and then patting the sand down around it, and repeating that until all the slips are in the lava sand. Keep moist but not wet. I usually use this if I am expecting to hold slips 3 to 5 days and if they already have a lot of roots. If their roots are sort of skimpy, I opt for the potting soil or water in cups.

That sure is a lot of rain! We have have 4 inches total since the fling and I was feeling "abused" by the excess moisture. Now that I think about how much worse it would be to have 9" in the same time frame, I feel so much better. You have had more rain since the Spring Fling than we've had all year, and both of us have had far more rain in the last couple of weeks than any portion of western OK has had all year.

As long as your mud dries out fairly quickly, you could plant the slips in fairly moist soil. Sweet potatoes love moisture, but they do need moist, well-drained soil too as too much moisture cause lead to issues like disease and rot.
The clay we have here at our house dries out so slowly that I'd likely have to wait 6 weeks for it to dry out after receiving 9" of rainfall over a period of a couple of weeks. I hope your soil dries out more quickly than mine does.

Dawn

Michelle, I wish I had waited. I tried to get everything done before Madge came home from the Hospital.

I mudded in the last of my sweet potatoes Thur. or Fri., and now have okra and sweet potatoes planted and its turned winter again.

I should not complain, Madge is in good shape,( she came home yesterday eve.) she was very impressed with Scott and White and all the staff.

Larry

Larry - glad DW is home! She'll get more rest at home than in a hospital.

I'm HORRIBLY behind. Aside from tomatoes, onions & cauliflower...nothing else is planted. The lows tonite are supposed to be in the mid-40's and that makes me nervous. Last 2 times that happened we got a frost. Maybe the ground is warm enough that won't happen. I still haven't gotten my slips started!

Michelle - did you order from Gary's website? I'm thinking about short-cutting to that myself. What kind(s) did you get?

Paula

Larry,

It is terrific news to hear that Madge is home and also that she had a pleasant experience at Scott and White. I wish her a speedy recovery!

I've been holding back on planting the real heat-lovers because of the cold nights this week, but think I'll likely put them in the ground in 3 or 4 more days when the nights are safely out of the 40s again, and hopefully out of the 40s for good!

Paula, I've decided I live my life "behind" during the planting season, but since it turned cold this week, I'm glad I didn't already have the true heat lovers in the ground. It is bad enough that the peppers will be briefly exposed to lows in the low to mid-40s, but at least the plants that tolerate cold even less well than them aren't even planted yet.

I'm ready for the weather to stabilize and stay closer to normal or average temperatures for more than 3 days at a stetch. It was only 45 degrees last night, but we were supposed to be 49. Our wind chill this morning was 42 and then dropped to 41 right around sunrise and it felt plenty cold! Tonight we're supposed to be 46, so if we drop colder than forecast again, I'm guessing maybe 43 or 43. When will this endless see-sawing of the temperatures end. Having said that, I am nevertheless extremely grateful we are not enduring the kind of wildfires Texas continues to have or the horrific flooding that is occurring in the Mississippi River basin. Their weather-related issues make ours seem minor by comparison.

All of Gary's sweet potatoes are wonderful. We've enjoyed every single one and I couldn't pick a single favorite if I tried. In fact, one problem with growing so many is that it is hard to keep track of which ones you're cooking and eating on any given day because there were so many different varieties.

Dawn

Dawn, Thank you very much. I put the slips in water last night and I think I will pot them up when I get in this evening. This Sunday is our decoration day, so I have been making floral arrangements all week, and today and tomorrow will be especially hectic with family visiting. Glad I can keep them in cups for a few days til things settle down.

Larry, I'm glad to hear Madge is doing well and back home, that's great news. =) I put tomatoes and peppers out and thought, it will be great, a few showers will be great for them and water them in. Then we got a deluge instead of a few showers.

Paula, Yeah, I printed an order form from the site and mailed it in. I ordered a "Rainbow assortment" and received a bundle each of 'Jersey White', 'Purple', and 'Carolina Nugget'.
Sweet potatoes are another new experience for me. I'm looking forward to trying the different varieties. Next year I will definitely set my delivery date a little later in the year. I just didn't think about the timing with everything else going on. Oh, well such it is. =)

Michelle