Tip behind growing sweet potato leaves

I started growing sweet potato leaves from the cuttings Mutter stripped me from her garten. It came to me, as I was systematically tearing the leaves from the stem for cooking. So I planted some stems, out of which about 6 were viable, and 2 were especially successfully, because they were in their own pots. The remaining six are in the various fruit plants' pots to provide some nice foliage at the bottom and stop the stupid wind from blowing the top soil out, and onto my neighbor's area (I caught him sweeping a few times, it was quite embarrassing). 

I told Mutter about it so she passed me even more cuttings last week. But last weeks' were totally non-viable??? I couldn't figure out why.

So yesterday when I was at Mutter's garten, I heard Tante S tell Tante C to soak the sweet potato leaves they got from the neighboring gardener. I asked her why.

"You have to soak the sweet potato roots and stems after taking off the leaves. This way they will gouge enough water to survive." 

Oh. I thought back about the two plantings. The first time, Mutter soaked the cuttings for me, when she passed them to me, to wash out the dirt. I only cleaned the leaves like three hours later. No wonder the roots and stems were viable. Whereas last week, I just tore the leaves off and immediately planted the stems.

So yesterday, I took pains to soak all the cuttings before planting, Hope they are more viable this time. I took out all my little pots and filled them with soil before planting.

My shelf of woebegone cuttings, erdbeeren runners and half murdered zinnia

The leftmost pot on the top shelf and the pretty pot are the ones from two weeks ago. Last week's were all tossed out because they were not viable. The other pots are holding this week's soaked cuttings and my erdberry cuttings (which I should have soaked right? oopz). Which reminds me, I'd better take out the strawberry cutting which has no root ball!