If you have never tried to grow sweet potatoes before, you are in for a treat. Starting sweet potato slips is easy to do and lots of fun. Slips are the rooted sprouts that grow from an actual mature sweet potato. They are used to grow new sweet potato plants. Growing sweet potato slips is a fun project to do with kids. 
You can buy rooted sweet potato slips, or use sweet potatoes purchased from the store to start slips that will produce dozens of sweet potatoes by the time fall arrives. This tutorial shows how to grow sweet potato slips two ways – in water, and in potting soil.
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- Sweet potatoes – ipomoea batatas – enjoy a long frost-free growing season.
- They are a warm weather vegetable that takes about 90 days to mature.
- Sweet potatoes are a wonderful, earthy vegetable that can be used in so many ways in cooking.
See this recipe for sweet potato stalks for an unusual breakfast idea. These Italian sweet potatoes make a wonderful, one-pot, side dish that goes well with so many protein choices.
Why are they called potato bugs?
The way a potato bug looks is the reason it has adopted names like ‘skull insect,’ ‘shiny bug,’ ‘red-skull bug,’ ‘dark Jerusalem crickets,’ and ‘skunk bugs.’ Even though Jerusalem crickets or Jerusalem beetles are called potato bugs, they shouldn’t be confused with the Colorado beetle or Colorado potato beetle.
What do potatoes bugs eat?
Are Potato Bugs Bad? – 
Potato bugs eat the stems and foliage of potato crops. If these pests come in huge numbers, they can defoliate your plants entirely. Those creatures rarely form a large infestation, too. Furthermore, potato plants normally can resist infestations of the pests in the early growing season.
However, as they mature, the crop damage is usually serious. That’s why you should examine yours regularly. When Jerusalem crickets appear in swarms, they become a big threat. If you only find a few of them, eliminate the stuff by different means. You can get rid of items where Jerusalem crickets reside such as old containers and woodpiles.
Removing Colorado beetles requires more effort since they hatch in large numbers and can create severe plant damage.
How can you tell a potato bug from a bug?
How Do I Identify a Potato Bug? – 
Before you get rid of them, you have to be able to identify a potato bug. The adult bugs are 1/3 inch long, round, yellowish-orange beetles with black stripes on their wings and black spots behind the head. The larvae are 1/8 to 1/2 inch long and red with a black head and legs. They become yellowish-red or orange with two rows of black spots on each side of the body as they get older.
What are potato beetles?
Last season, potato bugs – sometimes called potato beetles or Colorado potato beetles – showed up in my garden for the first time. I freaked out; I wanted to figure out how to get rid of potato bugs without using any harmful pesticides that could seep into the vegetables and herbs in my garden.
Many gardeners know that the potato beetle is well-known for its ability to develop resistance to insecticides and pesticides. That means its one of the more challenging garden pests to get rid of out of your garden beds, so I had my work cut out for me. Fortunately, I discovered the trick to eradicating this pest in a way that doesn’t destroy my beloved plants.
Even better, now I know how to keep them from attacking my garden in the first place. Read on to learn everything you need to know. 