Is it Too Late to plant Sweet Potaoes in Zone 9

Is July 7th absolutely too late tp plant sweet potatoes in my Texas zone 9 garden?

Sheila, welcome to the forum.

The plants might need some extra water due to the hot weather Texas is getting. And even some temporary shade.

Here is a Tamu article on growing sweet potatoes:

https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/browse/featured-solutions/gardening-landscaping/sweet-potatoes/

as long as you have a good 100 days frost free you can still grow a nice crop.  As mentioned above, you will have to water them a few weeks till they take off if there is no rain, but they will love these very hot sunny days.  i have a neighbor that plants them this time of the year so they don't have to dig them up till the weather cools down.

Here is something to consider: you could always grow sweet potato no matter how short your (remaining) growing season if you were only interested in harvesting the leaves.  Most of us in North America don't give any thought to sweet potato leaves as a crop, but they are highly nutritious and very popular in other parts of the world.  I've eaten them, and they're great!  A go-to hot weather green crop, and very productive.  You can harvest heavily if not intending to dig the roots.  Or if a root crop is in your future, don't harvest from any one plant's vines quite so heavily and you can get too harvests from one plant over the course of a year, though likely the root crop will be somewhat diminished.

I cook them just like spinach.  Very mild tasting.