Growing Sweet Potato in Australia: The Complete Guide
Sweet Potato is an easy root & tuber to grow, needing full sun with moderate watering.
We get asked about sweet potato often enough that it's worth setting out the full picture here, beyond what fits on our printable card.
Ridge planting
Slips are laid horizontally along a raised ridge with 2–3 leaf nodes buried. Tubers form at the buried nodes along the stem, not just at the base — the ridge keeps them easy to find at harvest.
How to Plant Sweet Potato
Method — grow or buy rooted slips; lay horizontally along a mounded ridge with 2–3 nodes buried. Soil — loose, sandy-loam, well-drained. Rich soil grows more leaf and fewer tubers. Timing — plant in late spring once soil is reliably warm above 18°C.
Keeping It Growing Well
Keep these points in mind:
- Water deeply while establishing; ease off once vines are running to favour tubers over leaf.
- Lift trailing vines occasionally so they don't root at nodes and divert energy.
- Ridge soil up at planting for drainage and easy harvesting.
- Go light on fertiliser — high nitrogen grows vines, not tubers.
Problems to Watch For
Worth paying attention to:
- Sweet potato weevil — larvae tunnel tubers; rotate beds and hill well.
- Fungal wilt — improve drainage, choose resistant varieties.
- Vine borer — inspect regularly, remove affected sections.
- Rodents — protect ripening tubers near harvest time.
Picking and Keeping Your Harvest
Signs — leaves yellow, 100–170 days from planting, before the first frost. Method — cut back vines, then fork gently from the ridge edge inward. Curing — cure at 27–30°C and high humidity for 5–10 days to heal and sweeten skins. Storage — cool (13–15°C), dark, ventilated. Keeps several months. Never refrigerate.
For the condensed, printable version of everything above, head to the main sweet potato guide page.