In about a week, if you wiggle the sweet potato you will feel that roots are forming in the soil. Within another week or two, small sprouts will begin to grow from top of sweet potato. Once several sprouts have grown to 5-6 inches long, you are ready for the next step.

Are sweet potatoes OK if they sprout?

A sprouted potato is still safe to eat—use the top loop on a vegetable peeler to scoop out sprouts. So you've got a potato with eyes. ... But as gross as potato eyes are, they're not ruining the rest of the potato. You can just cut them out with a part of your vegetable peeler you may have looked over until now.

What to do with a sweet potato that has sprouted?

Once your sweet potatoes have sprouted, you have to separate them into plantable slips. To do this, you take each sprout and carefully twist it off of the sweet potato. Lay each sprout in a shallow bowl with the bottom half of the stem submerged in water and the leaves hanging out over the rim of the bowl.