Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas)

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Ipomoea batatas - Wikipedia
Ipomoea batatas - USDA PLANTS Database
All About Growing Sweet Potatoes - Mother Earth News
Sweet Potato - Authority Nutrition

Duration: Perennial

Native to: Tropical America

Edibility: Tubers

Status in Yard: Garden

I bought a sweet potato start at the organic nursery and put it in one of my new raised beds in June 2016, but it didn't grow at all for a few weeks. Then I added a small amount of store-bought vegan compost around the roots, and within a few days it started growing like crazy. By September, it filled most of the 4' x 10' space I had reserved for it, and it was overflowing into the walkways between the beds.

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The sweet potato patch on August 25, 2016

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I tried to harvest the tubers in September 2016, but none was well developed. Later, leaves kept appearing after I had removed all the above-ground portion of the plant. To start growing the plant in spring 2017, I moved a leafing tuber from the plot where it was growing in 2016 over to the next location in the rotation.

Sweet Potato Spinach

In the fall of 2015, a friend gave me some sweet potato spinach cuts. I kept them inside until spring, then planted them. Some died, but at least one grew very quickly. On July 4, 2016, the patch was quite large.

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The whole patch died back to its roots in the freeze on January 6 and 7, 2017, but it soon recovered to a state much as shown in the photo above.

The leaves give me an unpleasant feeling in my mouth and stomach when I eat them raw, and the leaves only seem to stay pristine when they are young. If I am going to use the plant for food, I need to harvest new shoots regularly and get in the habit of cooking them.