Growing a Sweet Potato 🍠 : The Hidden Work of Water💧
A grocery store experiment became an unexpected lesson in patience, transformation, and the quiet power of water.
In early May, I stuck a grocery store sweet potato in a jar of water. Honestly, I wasn’t convinced anything would happen.
(I’ll tell you about the ginger in another post … 😉)
For weeks, it looked exactly the same. Kind of boring. And more than a little disappointing. I mean, if Instagram makes growing sacks of sweet potatoes look so easy, what was I doing wrong?
Waiting is the Hardest Part (… 🙌 Tom Petty & the 💔ers)
It sat there on my windowsill like a fourth grade science project.
I checked every morning.
I changed the water every couple of days.
I inspected it.
But I didn’t know what was supposed to happen.
So I sent Chat a couple of pictures.
The results weren’t encouraging. Chat told me to Keep. Being. Patient. 😒
Eh, maybe it was just a bad potato 🥔.
We live in a world that rewards visible progress. Nature rarely works that way.
The Hidden Work
It happened on a Tuesday morning. I’d given up on my bum potato. But whoa …
A root.
Actually, more than one.
They were just … there.
When did that happen?
Those roots kept growing, and growing, and growing.
But nothing else happened…
Sweet potatoes aren’t planted whole. First they grow slips (supposed to come next). Those slips eventually grow roots of their own, and only then are they ready for soil.
Which meant...
More waiting.
By then it was warm enough to move it outside, and supposedly the steady warmth helps slips grow.
Well, days passed.
Weeks passed.
Early June became early July.
I changed the water a few times in there and the roots grew like mad.
Everything I could see was happening below the waterline.
Horror or beauty? 😱
And then yesterday, now early July, my potato looked strange.
Upon closer inspection …
Slips!
Not just one.
Several.
Each with pretty burgundy leaves.
One slip was ready for its next stage, already sending out roots to become its own independent sweet potato plant.
Transformation happened below the waterline.
Why This Fascinates Me
When I think about water, I usually think about its power. Floods. Storms. Oceans. Destruction.
But that’s only part of its story.
Water also nourishes. It dissolves what no longer belongs. It quietly reshapes landscapes. It reveals what’s hidden.
Most of all, it patiently creates conditions for life to emerge. Water doesn’t force change. It makes change possible.
It’s probably one reason I’m drawn to writing about water. Sometimes it’s fierce, in hurricanes and floods. Sometimes it’s absent, in droughts and dust bowls. And sometimes it’s quiet, but woven into every human story.
Water shapes where civilizations take root, how people travel, what they grow, what they fight over, and sometimes whether they survive at all. Most of the time, we barely notice it.
Until we do.
A sweet potato in a kitchen window.
Water doesn’t force change.
It makes change possible.
Stay Tuned: Separating the slips, planting them into grow bags, and seeing whether one grocery store sweet potato can become an entire harvest this fall… 🍁