Sweet potato
Ipomoea batatas
Planted as slips into warm soil, not as seed; a long, low-input summer crop for sandy ground.
When to plant in Santa Rosa
- TransplantOpens in 23 weeks
March 15, 2027 – June 30, 2027
UF/IFAS North Florida planting dates: mid-March to June. The guide writes this as "mid March" rather than as a date; the 15th is this platform's reading of it and the boundary is soft.
- HarvestOpen now
June 8, 2026 – November 7, 2026
Derived, not published as a window by the guide: the mid-March to June planting plus the guide's 85–130 days to harvest from sowing.
Growing it
- Days to maturity
- 85–130
- Sun
- Full Sun
Sweet potatoes are set as rooted slips rather than sown, and they want warm soil, so they go in well after the frost date. They suit the sandy soils of this region and need little once established. Roots are lifted before the first frost; frost-damaged roots do not store.
From the guide: UF/IFAS gives the North Florida planting dates for this crop as mid-March to June. It gives 85–130 days from seed to harvest, 10–12 inches apart in rows 36 inches apart. On the crop itself it says: Start with certified-free transplants (slips). Use vine tip cuttings for a second crop and prolonged harvest season. Bush types conserve garden space. Sweet potato weevils are a serious problem; rotate the planting site.
Where these dates come from: the North Florida column of the UF/IFAS Extension Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (SP 103/VH021), which defines North Florida as everything above State Road 40. Walton County is well inside it, and the Central and South Florida columns of the same table give different months. The guide is written for home and market gardens, so its spacing and days-to-harvest figures are a starting point for a field planting rather than a commercial schedule, and days to harvest varies by variety.
Common problems
- Sweetpotato weevil
- Root-knot nematode
- Wireworms
- Fusarium surface rot
- Whitefly