Georgia Jet
What's special about Georgia Jet
Fastest-maturing — the best sweet potato for northern gardens.
Growing this variety
Georgia Jet follows the same growing basics as Sweet Potato. Variety-specific maturity above; everything else below applies to the whole Sweet Potato family.
Germination
Spacing & depth
How to plant
Sweet potatoes are grown from rooted stem cuttings called slips, not seed. Suspend a supermarket tuber half-submerged in water on a warm sill; when 6-in sprouts appear, twist them off and root in water for 1 week. Plant slips into loose ridged soil after nights are warm. Dig gently before frost.
Grower's tip
Cure dug roots at 80–85°F and 85% humidity for 10 days — that converts starch to sugar and heals nicks. Then store at 55–60°F for months.
Soil preferences
Deep, loose, stone-free sandy loam — rocks and clumps fork roots.
6.0–7.0
Avoid fresh manure or heavy nitrogen (causes hairy or forked roots). A light compost and rock phosphate work well.
Watering
Steady moisture — 1 in per week. Uneven watering causes cracking.
Deep soaking; avoid shallow daily watering that keeps roots near the surface.
Overwatered: cracked or rotted roots, foliage disease. Underwatered: woody, hot-flavored, or bitter roots.
Prefers top-watering — Top-water at the base. Wet foliage spreads late blight and early blight; keep leaves as dry as possible.
Temperature tolerance
60–75°F (15–24°C)
45–65°F (7–18°C)
Carrots, parsnips, beets sweeten after frost. Storage roots can often overwinter in the ground under heavy mulch.
Container growing
Possible with the right cultivar
12+ in deep for full-size carrots and parsnips; 8 in deep is fine for radish and short carrots
Pick short or round cultivars (Parisian carrots, Chioggia beets) for shallow containers.
Succession planting
Radish every 2 weeks. Carrots and beets every 3–4 weeks spring through late summer.
Detailed harvesting
Loosen soil with a fork before pulling to prevent snapped tops. Twist off greens 1 in above the crown for storage; leave 1 in of stem on beets to prevent bleeding.
Post-harvest storage & preservation
Trim tops; store unwashed in damp sand or perforated bags in the fridge or root cellar at 32–40°F. Most root crops keep 3–6 months.
Culinary, medicinal & other uses
Fresh, roasted, fermented (kraut, kimchi), pickled. Tops of beets, radishes, and turnips are edible greens.
Medicinal or traditional uses are shared for interest only — this is not medical advice. Consult a qualified professional before using any plant medicinally.
Seed saving
Biennial and insect-pollinated. Root crops cross widely (carrots cross with Queen Anne's Lace).
1/2 mile in the open or use cage with introduced pollinators.
Overwinter the best roots; replant in spring; collect the dry umbels/seed stalks in year 2.
Your zone's planting calendar
Pick your USDA hardiness zone and we'll estimate the key dates for sweet potato in your area. These are regional averages — always check your own last-frost forecast before sowing.
My Georgia Jet Sweet Potato notes
Georgia Jet Sweet Potato seeds on hand
Track packets and loose seeds you already have. Private to your account.
Par level — leave at 0 for no alert. Anything below par shows on Seed Starting and your shopping list.
From your kitchen — grow sweet potato from what you already have
Grown from 'slips' — leafy shoots you sprout off a stored root. One grocery sweet potato gives 10–20 slips.
- 1Suspend a whole sweet potato half-in / half-out of a jar of water using toothpicks. Keep in a warm bright spot.
- 2In 4–6 weeks leafy sprouts appear on the top half. When shoots are 6 in tall with 3–4 leaves, twist them off at the base.
- 3Set the twisted-off slips in a glass of water 5–7 days until they grow roots.
- 4Plant rooted slips 4 in deep, 12 in apart, once soil is warm (65°F+).
Storage: Save one or two roots from harvest to sprout again next spring.
Order more seeds
Running low? Reorder from one of these seed stores.
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Other Sweet Potato varieties
Beauregard
100 daysThe standard grocery-store orange sweet potato — reliable, productive, stores well.
Murasaki
110 daysJapanese purple-skinned, white-fleshed. Sweet, dry, chestnut-like.
Bonita
100 daysWhite-fleshed, tan-skinned — mild and creamy, less sweet than orange types.
Molokai Purple
120 daysDeep purple flesh from Hawaii — antioxidant powerhouse, striking on the plate.