. I've got my rotations planned out with help from my green fingered Dad but one thing he and I know nothing about is whether sweet potatoes grow in South Eastern England or where to buy seed potatoes or seeds from? 
- it is winter here and it is still growing, albeit slowly . I am growing it in a 20 litre bucket with holes in the bottom for drainage. If you dont do any good growing them in the ground you might want to try a black container or perhaps tyres to make the most of the heat. 
Question from Anne Preston: I recently visited the Eden Project in Cornwall and was inspired to grow some more unusual kinds of vegetables. I'd like to grow sweet potatoes, can I grow them here in the UK and can I use sweet potatoes from the supermarket as seed potatoes?
Bob: You can grow them successfully here but you can't just plant them like you would an ordinary potato because they don't sprout in the same way. You have to put a sweet potato in really quite intense heat. Many of them from supermarkets are treated with an anti-sprouting agent, so it's a good idea to give it a good scrub and clean it first. I put mine into moist sand, and then, as soon as the sprouts have got two or three inches tall I bring them out into the light, detach them from the tuber, and I put them into an ordinary compost and grow them on in a propagator. Once they're growing strongly, I pot them up and I keep them in a greenhouse. You must train them up strings - to give them more light and stop them rooting everywhere. They do need quite a lot of water but they don't need a very rich soil. Take some cuttings in late summer, root them, keep them indoors on a sunny windowsill through the winter so next season you'll have an even better crop than if you'd grown them from tubers.
You lucky things!
from my bucket! I have refurbished the potting soil and replanted a likely looking kumara back in the pot and put it in the greenhouse. So I'll see how well it grows next summer.
