Growing sweet potatoes in zone 10
Sweet potatoes grow from slips (rooted cuttings), not seed — order them or sprout your own from a store tuber. Plant well after frost into warm soil, then dig before soil temps drop in fall and cure for sweetness.
Zone 10 covers south Florida, coastal Southern California, low desert — frost is rare — the calendar flips, with the main garden running fall through spring. Zone dates are medians: frost timing varies within a zone with elevation and terrain, so treat these windows as a solid default and refine them with your own city’s dates below.
Make it local
These windows use zone 10's typical frost dates (last frost ~Jan 25, first frost ~Dec 20). For windows computed from your frost dates, run the ZIP code frost lookup and open the planting calendar — it remembers your city. The seed starting scheduler turns the whole seed rack into one printable, date-sorted list.
Frequently asked questions
When do I plant sweet potatoes in zone 10?
Transplant Feb 8 – Feb 22, counted from zone 10's typical last frost around Jan 25. It has no frost tolerance — a late frost after planting means covering it or replanting.
Can I direct sow sweet potatoes in zone 10?
Not usefully in zone 10 — sweet potatoes needs more growing time than direct sowing allows, which is why it's raised from transplants .