Growing Sweet Potatoes And Sweet Potato Leaves From Scratch

Growing Sweet Potatoes is such fun! Start with growing your own slips to storing the roots. This is a super healthy and versatile vegetable. 

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Well, I have found a new favorite plant to grow in my garden. And I’m eager to share with you why I love them, and how to plant sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are so fun to grow from scratch, starting with a sweet potato, growing slips, harvesting the greens and finally the roots for winter storage. They provide multiple harvests and are super nutritious and healthy too. Let’s go find out more!

Why You’ll Love To Grow Sweet Potatoes

Let me start by saying that I rarely had sweet potatoes in my life before I started to grow them in my garden. Not because I didn’t like them, far from it. But they were foreign to me, because I never had them when growing up in Germany. The first time I heard of them was when I met my former American husband back then, who wanted some for Thanksgiving! So I learned.

After that I was living in the far North of America for many decades, and they were not commonly grown, because sweet potatoes love it hot. However now that I have started to grow my own and realize what a treasure they are, I would definitely want to grow them in the North if I ever went back. Probably in pots. 

So aside from the famous Thanksgiving casserole dish that is topped with caramelized marshmallows, or as fries, sweet potatoes rarely touched my plate. And that’s a shame, really. They have so much going for them! If only I had recognized it sooner. And that is why I’m sharing my newfound affection for these lovely, healthy, and decorative plants. And I think you should give growing them a try. 

Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are actually part of the convolvulaceae family, the morning glories. They are native to tropical regions of Central and South America, where they are a perennial plant. In zones 9-11 they can be grown as perennials, while in northern areas we grow them as annuals.

Nutrition

Sweet Potato leaves

One can argue that the leaves are the most nutritious part of the plant. I like to think they are on par with the tubers, but in different ways.

The leaves are high in Vitamins A, C, K, B1, B2 (Riboflavin), B3 (Niacin), and B9 (Folate). And in minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. They also contain zinc, manganese, and copper. Sweet potato leaves are full of various constituents that show strong bioactivity.

The leaves of the sweet potato might offer protection against cancers, hypertensions, bacteria, diabetes, and heart disease.

Sweet potato leaves are high in antioxidants that show anti-cancer and anti-mutagenic activities which means, they might reduce the rate of mutation of cancer cells.

An extract from the purple variety of sweet potato leaves has helped to depress diabetes-related neuro-inflammatory responses and all the sweet potato leaves are anti-inflammatory due to the high antioxidant properties.

They are immune modulators, which means they can help to modulate immune system response versus just stimulating it, which can be a critical advantage with auto-immune disorders and over-active immune systems. And they can possibly protect the liver and reduce cell death.

They are also considered one of the most important sources of polyphenols. The polyphenol levels are highest if sweet potato leaves experience long-day photo-periods and they increase as the season progresses. So the amount of sunshine makes a difference and seems to have a cumulative effect. (these paragraphs are a short extract from a super interesting health report on sweet potato leaves – source)

Sweet potato leaves are similar to spinach in nutrient value. But they are higher in vitamins C and B6. And they contain less oxalic acid.

Sweet Potato Roots

Sweet Potatoes are highly nutritious: They are a great source of fiber, carbohydrates, protein, Omega 3 fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. The orange, and especially the purple varieties, are high in antioxidants too. That can strengthen the immune system and protect from chronic diseases.The high fiber content promotes gut health, protects from colon cancer and keeps you regular.

Purple sweet potatoes are rich in anthocyanins that studies have shown, can protect from cancer or slow it down. They may also help improve brain function.

The orange sweet potatoes are incredibly high in beta carotene, which the body converts to Vitamin A that is essential for eye-health. Just one cup of sweet potatoes contains double the recommended daily amount of beta carotenes. And vitamin A is super important for a healthy immune system too.

Easy to grow

Sweet Potatoes are fairly easy to grow. They don’t require much fussing at all. And if you are looking for getting the greens, they love hot weather and will be producing happily long after your spinach and chard decided to bolt in the heat.

Decorative

The vines of sweet potatoes are highly decorative in the garden and they would make a beautiful display on your balcony or even in your apartment. 

Long Term Storage

Sweet potato roots can store for many months at room temperature, well into March. For extra long storage, they can be pressure-canned.

Versatile and delicious

The roots can be prepared in so many ways, from sweet pies, breads and cookies to casseroles. Or they can be fried, baked or roasted. 

Tasty Greens

All of the sweet potato plant is edible. And those greens make a delicious green vegetable, that can be used like spinach, which is one of the main reasons I am growing this vegetable.

They are not very demanding and seem quite disease resistant

Sweet potatoes don’t need much soil fertility, in fact too much fertilizer can hurt the growth of the tubers. Some compost applied in the beginning of the season should be enough plus some water twice a week.

Mine were little bothered by pests or diseases. Some wire worm damage, which I expected, and some flea beetle holes, but compared with everything else in my first Missouri garden, they did very well.

Ground cover

Whether you grow sweet potatoes in the garden or in your food forest, they make a great living mulch that will shade the roots of your shrubs and keep weeds down. Plus the roots can help to loosen the ground and provide aeration. They can also supply nutrients if you choose to leave some of them in the ground. 

Wow, What’s Not To Love?

So tell me, what’s not to love? I can’t come up with any reasons. While all my greens suffered from pests this past growing season and I didn’t get any cabbage, mustard, kale, or chard, these sweet potato greens pushed on and kept me in greens all summer plus it filled my freezer for winter soups. That’s besides the huge potato harvest I came away with. 

My vigorously growing Irish potatoes suffered a terrible fate when they were wiped out in just one night by blister beetles. Hadn’t ever even heard of those before and sure did not see it coming. One day my potatoes were beautiful, the next they were almost completely defoliated.

So I was grateful for my sweet potatoes. And while they don’t taste a bit like regular potatoes, they make good substitutes in many of my potato dishes. It doesn’t taste the same, but it’s delicious in its own way. 

This is a good example of how diversity in your garden can increase your food security.

How To Grow Sweet Potatoes

Alright, I hope I got you at least interested in sweet potatoes and better yet, I hope you’ll grow some. So let’s get started growing sweet potatoes.

Sourcing your sweet potatoes

Slips are grown from the actual sweet potato root that we normally cook and mash for the holidays. This can be a regular store bought sweet potato.

You can go to the grocery and pick one up there and start growing sweet potato plants. One caveat: It won’t work if the potato was treated with sprouting inhibitors. If you can get untreated organic ones, you’ll have the best chance. 

Varieties:

Apparently Beauregard seems to have been the most favored of the sweet potatoes for a long time. My friend here in Missouri says they work really well for her too, she loves growing them. I have not yet tried them but am hoping to some day. They are recommended for Northern growers.

Another one that seems to work well in the North is a newer variety, Covington, that comes with high praises from Fedco seeds, who sells the slips.

Other common varieties include Vardaman, Centennial, Jewel, Garnet, and Georgia Jet.

I’ve grown purple sweet potatoes, Jewel and Garnet (all from the health food store). They all produced really well and I love them all. The purple ones have stunningly colored flesh. 

If you are after a certain variety, it is often easiest to buy slips from a reputable nursery. Then, once you harvest those first sweet potatoes, you can just save a few to grow next year’s crop by making your own slips from them. 

How many sweet potatoes do I need?

Think about how many sweet potatoes your family wants to eat each week. Multiply by 52. That gives you a starting point for a year’s supply.

Consider that each sweet potato puts out anywhere from at least 6 to about 20 slips per plant.

Each of those slips makes a sweet potato plant that will produce 4-6 sweet potatoes.

So if we’re using the low numbers, one potato can produce a harvest of at least 24 sweet potatoes. However, as an average you should get about twice that much, or about 48 sweet potatoes. That is so awesome. One potato can turn into 48. I have yet to see an Irish potato this productive.

I grow more sweet potatoes than I can use. The extras make great fodder for the pigs and chickens during the hunger gap and because they provide me with lots of nutritious greens for a large part of the season, and I blanch or steam and freeze any extras for winter soups. 

And consider too, that you can use sweet potato greens to make very nutritious silage or hay for your livestock. I’m hoping to grow more next year and drying some of the greens by draping them over a fence to dry them.

First Step: Growing slips

Slips are the first step in growing sweet potatoes and it’s such fun! Unlike potatoes, which get stuck in the ground whole or in chunks, Sweet potatoes would just rot in the cold weather unless you’re in a zone 9 or higher. And one sweet potato can make a dozen or more plants if they are grown as slips. 

What are slips?

That was my big question before I was initiated. Slips are sprouts that emerge from a sweet potato root in the late winter. It means the roots are ready to start reproducing.

If you grow your own sweet potatoes it is likely that they will start sprouting in their basket by the time you get ready to start planting them. Store bought sweet potatoes not so much in my experience. 

There are two ways you can produce slips and root your sweet potato. 

Method one: involves submerging a third or so of the sweet potato in water to get it to root and sprout.

You can use toothpicks to suspend the sweet potato partly in the jar if your jar is deep. 

Method two: Here you’ll ‘plant’ the sweet potato partially buried in some potting soil. Some say to cut it in half first and pressing each half with the cut side down into the soil. I’ve tried both and it all worked.

Keep your sweet potato plants warm. At least 65 degrees or warmer is best for them. You can use a heat mat to help them grow slips faster.

It should take about 4-6 weeks for your sweet potatoes to root and produce sprouts. Mine are already sprouting in storage, so they start growing slips pretty quickly. Wait till they are several inches tall before you proceed.

Hey, now you’ve got slips! How cool is that!

Once your sweet potatoes produce good sized slips, you can twist them off the potato and place them in a jar of water to root. Alternatively you can plant them into a 4″ pot with damp potting soil.

Rooting in water will save space and many gardeners just plant straight from the water dish to the garden when it’s time. I did that last year. But if you find that you have to wait several weeks for the weather to improve before planting them, it helps to put them in pots to grow healthy and strong plants.

To plant them in pots, just make a hole in some potting soil in the pot, then plant the sweet potato slip, burying the stem to the just below the first set of leaves. Keep it moist till its rooted, then let it dry out a bit in-between waterings.

A Few More Consideratons

If your sweet potato mothers start to rot while you’re trying to grow slips, it’s best to take off any slips that are big enough to handle and I just stick the tiny ones in a small bowl with some wet sand to keep them from drowning in a water-bath. Then you can compost the rotten sweet potato. 

I stored a couple of boxes of my sweet potatoes in my storage trailer and it got quite cold in there even with a space heater on for a couple of nights.

This caused a lot to them to get cold damage and unfortunately, they won’t keep. I’m processing what I can for the freezer and the rest goes to the pigs. They will most likely rot before they sprout. But I do have a few that I kept inside my yurt. They will work well for sprouting.

Planting Your Sweet Potato Slips

If you are planting your sweet potatoes into the garden, wait for several weeks after your last frost. Ideally you’ll want the soil temperature to be 65 degrees or higher. 

If you’re living in the North with a short growing season, I recommend that you cover an area of soil, which you want to plant with sweet potatoes, with black plastic mulch. Do that right around your last frost date to warm up the soil quicker, so you can plant into it 2-3 weeks later. 

Growing Sweet Potatoes In Pots

If you have a greenhouse, that would be a great place to grow sweet potatoes in a cool climate. You can plant into the ground there, or in large 20 gallon containers or grow bags. Consider using those cow mineral lick containers that you can often get for free or cheap from a farm. You can plant 4-5 slips in a 20 gallon container.

You can also plant your sweet potatoes in a smaller pot for your balcony or home once they outgrow your little 4″ pots. You’ll need about a 5 gallon bucket, 12″ diameter x12″ inch” tall pot, or grow bag per plant. If you’re just growing greens, you can plant two slips into that size pot.

I am planning to grow a couple of plants in 5 gallon buckets this year (I’ve got a few that split at the bottom because they had water in them during frost, they’ll make perfect planters). I want to bring them inside before the frost in the fall to keep growing greens. I’ll be back to let you know how it went later.

Use a quality potting soil and amend with some compost and sand or vermiculite for better drainage. It’s important that your soil drains well to avoid that the sweet potatoes will rot once they start growing.

If planting in pots, be sure to keep the soil adequately watered, but let it dry out a bit before each watering. Lightly fertilize with plant food every 3 weeks or so. If you’re growing them for the greens, plant food that is a little higher on the nitrogen works well. But for an overall good choice and rich mineral content try a very light application of liquid fish and kelp emulsion. 

Planting Outdoors.

Once the weather is stable and warm and the soil has warmed to 65 degrees or higher, you can plant your slips out into your garden. 

Location

Choose a sunny location. Sweet potatoes like it hot and love all day sun. I like to let them run around other plants who prefer cooler soil, where the sweet potatoes can shade their roots. 

Soil Preparation

Sweet potatoes like well draining soil with some compost. They are not very heavy feeders, so just some compost added to your garden bed before planting should go a long way to keep them happy. I didn’t add anything else last year and mine put out super vigorous vines with huge roots come harvest time.

In northern areas, placing some black thermal plastic after the last frost and about two weeks before planting can help warm the soil. You can leave it in place and just cut holes to plant your sweet potatoes into. The plastic will also keep this area weed free and keep your sweet potato vines from trying to root elsewhere. 

If you are planting into a plastic mulch, mark your holes with an upright stick or flag, so when you go to water later in the season, and your bed is thickly covered with vines, you’ll know where to put the water so it goes into the hole instead of running off the plastic. 

Spacing

Typical spacing is 12-18 inches apart. Be sure to give your sweet potatoes lots of room to sprawl. Their vines will grow to about 4 feet long, going in all directions.

Just plant them slightly deeper than they were in their pot. You can just bury the whole stem under the first set of leaves. They’ll put roots out along the stem too.

Seasonal Care

While the potatoes are growing, it’s a good idea to keep the vines from rooting in other places. When a potato vine roots in the soil it will want to produce tubers there and it will spend its energy on lots of small tubers all along its vine.

Come harvest time, you’ll find extra potatoes, but they all won’t be very big. So unless you’re in a zone where you can grow them as perennials, it is best to discourage this.

Mulching might help, although I found mine rooting into the wood chips in my food forest. Placing a barrier, such as some brown paper bag pieces, between the vines and the soil can help. This will give you a smaller number of larger potatoes.

Pests And Diseases

Sweet potatoes need little care throughout the season. I did not find mine much affected by the diseases or pests that decimated my other crops. This is my first garden in this location and I just started it in the middle of an old pasture. So we’ll see if things change over the years. But here are some of the problems that could befall your sweet potatoes. 

For all the different pests that might plague sweet potatoes, I did not find many pests other than a few flea beatles, that preferred my mustards and eggplants over the sweet potatoes. And the annoying wireworms, which have followed me into all the gardens I ever had. They make tunnels in potatoes, carrots and other root crops, and they found my sweet potatoes as well. It was minimal though.

Pests

Common bugs are flea beetles, aphids, white flies, root knot nematodes and wireworms. They can be bothered by a number of other beetles too if they are common in your area. If you find bugs on your sweet potatoes you can look at the very comprehensive listing of pests by the NC Extension office and see if you can identify the culprit. I’m saving this list for myself just in case. 

But be sure to watch for aphids, since they can carry diseases, and crush them when you first see the clusters emerge. If you find an infestation, you can spray some natural neem oil in a suspension mixed up of 2 tsp pure neem oil, 2 tsp castile soap and 1 quart of water. Shake well several times during application.

Neem oil can also help with white flies, leaf miners and many other pests. Neem oil also has antifungal properties.

As with all applications, keep in mind that if it can kill bad bugs, it also has the capability to kill the good bugs. So watch out for ladybugs, lacewings, bees and other beneficial critters that you want to keep safe, because they are your allies in the garden. 

Diseases

For identifying disease problems, here is a link to a post by UGA on Diseases. You can refer to this if you have problems that you want to address. Here are some of the more common ones to watch for: Streptomyces soil rot, southern blight, and circular spot.

I won’t address every issue here, since there are so many, but most are often location specific and vary from one place or climate to another. And prevention works best for diseases.

As a prevention, maintaining soil health, crop rotation, companion planting, and proper irrigation practices go a long way towards keeping your sweet potatoes healthy. 

Besides that, avoid planting sweet potatoes near any of the solanums (peppers, eggplants, tomatoes) or in a place where they were growing the year before.

Fertilizer

I did not fertilize my sweet potatoes. I have a slightly raised bed (about 6 inches) that I filled with a homemade soil mix of a third each, compost, peat and pine bark. Underneath there is clay and gravel. It was sufficient to produce lots of greens and great big potato roots. 

After harvesting, I spread more compost over the garden beds to feed the soil life over the winter. And in the spring I add another layer of compost to increase soil fertility for the growing season.

Over-fertilizing will cause problems. Too much nitrogen will produce lots of greens and small roots, and it can actually produce unhealthy plants. Whenever you isolate compounds such as in N-P-K fertilizer, it can cause imbalances in soil and plants. That is why I prefer to apply a whole foods ‘fertilizer’.

So my advice is to hold back on the fertilizer and only use plant foods that are rich in many minerals like liquid fish and kelp emulsion, greensand, compost tea, or comfrey tea. If you’re growing lots of comfrey, which I recommend, a mulch of comfrey leaves can also supply minerals while keeping the soil moist.

Apply these natural nutrients and minerals every 3-4 weeks during the season, or as needed, if your sweet potato plants look undernourished. You can also add a little bit (just a few pinches) of Redmond real salt or unrefined sea salt to your water, which can also help supply important trace minerals. 

Your ultimate goal should be to improve overall soil health and only add an isolated compound if you find, with a soil-test, your soil is lacking a specific mineral (Selenium for example).

Watering

Sweet potatoes are considered relatively drought resistant, but inconsistent and inadequate watering can affect them negatively. Stick your finger into the soil and if you don’t feel moisture and inch below the surface, you’ll need to water. You might also see it if the greens look wilted, and if they do, you don’t want to wait to give them water. Stress from lack of water can affect the tubers later and will make the plant susceptible to diseases and pest pressure.

Water your newly planted slips every day for the first week. And every other day for another week or longer if you’re having a dry spell.

After that, you’ll want to deep water once or twice a week to maintain soil moisture. Mulching will help keep the moisture from evaporating while the plants are still small.

Once the vines cover the ground, they’ll provide their own living mulch. I found that the soil under the sweet potato vines stayed moist even during some dry spells. And because of it, I rarely had to water, except during extended dry spells. I also keep a thick wood chip mulch in my pathways, which helps retain moisture in my garden as a whole. 

Cut back on watering for the last 3 weeks before harvesting the tubers.

Harvesting Greens

Throughout the season you can harvest the very nutritious sweet potato greens. Cut one or two of longest vines on each plant, leaving about a foot for regrowth. I waited till my vines were well established (about 45 days) and harvested from 3-4 plants on a rotation.

Pluck off the tender leaves and stems. If the stems are a J-shape they snap off easily and are good to eat. Leave the tough stems and vines for the goats or the compost. The stem toward the tip is often tender too.

I also prune back a few of the vines if they get too unruly, and use those for cooking. Just don’t over-harvest any plant, they do need their leaves to grow big roots, but they can suffer a few losses here and there without ill-effect. Don’t harvest leaves from one plant for two weeks to a month after your last harvest.

If you find aphids in a few new shoots, you can harvest them for greens. Just wash off the aphids and benefit in two ways. 

Sweet Potatoes In The Food Forest

Sweet potatoes love the sun, and so they won’t care much for being in a shady location, however they did super in my new food forest that has little shade yet and I think they would still be great to plant in an established food forest on the south side of the trees. I had some monster sweet potatoes growing under the wood chip mulch of my food forest. 

Companions For Your Sweet Potatoes

Keep in mind the thick vining habit of sweet potatoes when planning your companion plants. Some that would be great companions in some ways, would just be overrun by the Sweet potato vines, but they could be planted near-by, such as Thyme and Sweet Alyssum. 

Herbs

Aromatic herbs are great throughout your garden to keep pests away or detract from the scent of certain plants to confuse pests. Try Dill, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme. 

Dill can attract butterflies to pollinate your garden and it can deter devastating spider mites. 

Summer savory can attract bees and its scent can confuse the sweet potato weevil. Catnip can attract beneficial insects and deter flea beetles.

Basil is said to repel hornworms and flies. I’m not so sure about that. I had it all, lots of basil and lots of hornworms and flies last year. But basil is a delightful and super useful plant to grow in your garden in any case. Another one that was not bothered by all the pests that ran amok. 

Flowers

Alyssums are great companions for your garden because they attract beneficial insects and they make a great ground cover. So plant them freely throughout. 

Marigolds can keep away root knot nematodes and many other bugs that can damage the roots of the sweet potatoes. It can also deter whiteflies and other pests. Plant them throughout your garden for best results. They help many vegetable plants, except beans.

Yarrow is a great companion plant that attracts many beneficial insects such as predatory wasps, lace wings and spiders, your allies against the nasties. Yarrow is also a superb medicinal plant and the flowers can be used in baked goods.

Daisies can attract the tachinid fly, which prey on the larvae of moths, beetles and stink bugs.

Nasturtiums can just intermingle with the sweet potatoes, but take care not to plant so heavily that they’ll outcompete the sweet potatoes. They can repel aphids and beetles. Nasturtiums are great all throughout the garden and will benefit most all your vegetable plants. They are an excellent choice to grow in a food forest too. Nasturtiums are also completely edible and if you’re harvesting sweet potato greens, you can just clip a few nasturtium shoots at the same time to eat as companion greens. Delish!

Borage can deter pests and it is edible.

Lemon Balm has great medicinal value, but it can also keep away nasty bugs while attracting beneficial insects such as parasitic wasps and hoverflies. It can help deter all the worms that bother sweet potatoes. Use it on your skin too if you find yourself pestered by mosquitoes while you’re in the garden.

Zinnias are not only beautiful, they attract all sorts of pollinators and beneficial insects. And they can impact your soil health by attracting beneficial soil microbes and fungi.

Vegetable companions:

Sweet potatoes like to live with root crops such as beets, carrots, turnips, radishes, and parsnips. Parsnips can possibly compete with Sweet potato roots, because they are so long and deep. So plant parsnips in the vicinity, but not directly near your sweet potatoes.

Horseradish can build disease resistance in nearby plants and deter damaging beetles.

Mustards can be a sacrificial plant you can grow at the edge of the garden to attract the flea beetles in your garden and hopefully keep them away from other plants such as eggplants and sweet potatoes.

In my own garden, my mustard leaves looked like a sieve while the sweet potato leaves right next to them showed hardly any flea beetle damage. I love to grow mustards for greens, but in my first Missouri garden, I couldn’t eat any because of the flea beetle damage. I’ll be on the watch for those this year!

Pole beans are said to increase sweet potato production. I grew Bush beans with my sweet potatoes and I found out later that it is actually not encouraged by some growers because it competes for space. I didn’t notice a problem except that it was hard to harvest the beans without stepping on sweet potato vines.

Garlic repels many pests that do not like its odor. I like to plant all my tiny garlic cloves that are a pain to peel all throughout the garden and around fruit trees for that reason.

Scallions and onions with their pungent aroma are great deterrents for the colorado potato beetle. Keep the alliums away from the beans though. They don’t play well together. 

Spinach is a great one to grow near the sweet potatoes. They can pull nutrients from the ground that benefit green leaves and plant growth. Thus reducing the sweet potato vines from growing too vigorous and that encourages sweet potato root growth instead. 

Corn works well with sweet potatoes. They can help each other. Sweet potatoes shade the ground and keep the weeds down while the corn provides dappled shade for the sweet potatoes during the hottest part of summer.

Dislikes:

Avoid planting squash plants, melons and cucumbers near sweet potatoes. They will compete for space and might share pests.

Avoid planting plants in the solanaceae family, which includes tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, with sweet potatoes. Apparently they can encourage diseases in each other. And don’t plant the solaneums where sweet potatoes grew last year. 

Sunflowers are not recommended because they might carry certain diseases that the sweet potatoes could pick up. Having said that, I grew sunchokes and sweet potatoes in the same area and didn’t have problems. 

Harvesting and Storing Sweet Potatoes

One of my biggest questions at the end of summer was when to harvest sweet potatoes and how to store them. So here I’ll share what I learned and it seemed to work pretty darn well.

Harvesting

The best time to harvest sweet potatoes is before the first frost, or just after the first light frost. If you get hit with a frost that kills your sweet potato vines, be sure to harvest the potatoes right away to avoid having them rot in the ground. Try to pick a day that is dry and after several dry days to avoid having too much soil stick to the potatoes.

When to harvest

I prefer to harvest just before the frost on a nice sunny day for two reasons:

1. It’s a good idea to leave the potatoes out in the sun for a day or two to dry their skin before handling them too much. That is, if the weather allows it. That’s best done when night time temps stay above 50 degrees. 

2. I like to take advantage of the still green sweet potato vines and collect as much of the tender shoots and leaves as possible for the freezer. The rest of the vine is great fodder for the goats. They love them. The few I missed got ruined in the first frost and so they were only good for the compost pile. Which is good too, of course! 

Here is the best way to harvest sweet poatoes

Cut the vines but leave about a foot or so sticking out of the ground that serve as markers. If you grow them all over the place, like I did, it also helps to place little survey flags wherever your plants are growing, or you’ll be hard pressed to find them all. 

Next, try digging with your hands first to get all the potatoes you can. If your sweet potato vines were rooting in other places, away from the main hole, check there too. They like to make potatoes anywhere they root. If they are small, you can still use them. I like to use the small ones to grow slips next year. Some I left in the ground to nourish the soil.

If there are still sweet potatoes that you can’t get out by digging with your hands, grab a garden fork and carefully loosen the soil around the potatoes and lift them out of the ground.

Don’t clean them right after harvest. Leave the potatoes on the ground for a day or two if it’s warm and dry enough, to dry and harden their skin a little. After that, you can try to gently wipe off the worst of the stuck on soil with a soft cloth, such as a terry washcloth. Always take care not to damage the skin.

Now gently gather up the potatoes in a basket or box and take them to a place to cure.

Curing

This step is necessary. You’ll be curing your sweet potatoes for 7-14 days in a warm location around 85℉ with 85% humidity. Keep them spread out on a table or a rack. After that they need to cure for another month at 55-60℉. This process will develop the sugars in the sweet potatoes. They will not taste sweet when you first harvest them.

Having said that, opinions on curing vary quite a bit. The situation above is probably the most ideal condition. My conditions were far less from ideal and except for the cold damage during a sever cold spell we had, because I lack proper storage, they fared just fine and are super sweet for me.

My curing temps were probably more than 85 during the day in my trailer, and less during the night, about 65 with a space heater on. I kept it up for a week before storing them in a cooler place, that wasn’t actually always cooler. So, you can totally try to aim for the ideal, but I think if you can’t quite get it right, it will still give you great sweet potatoes that will store well into March.

Storing

Now store the sweet potatoes at above 50 degrees and up to about 70 degrees in a breathable container, such as a burlap sack, a basket or a wooden slatted crate. If the temperature falls below 50 they can get cold damage and rot. So do not store them in the refrigerator.

Uses

Use in any sweet potato recipe throughout the winter. If you have a lot left in late winter and want to preserve them longer, try pressure canning them in a very light syrup.

I use sweet potatoes in place of regular potatoes in all my meals right now, because my Irish potatoes all got decimated by the blister beetle here. So my sweet potatoes end up in stews, soups and more.

Try making sweet potato fries and serve them with maple syrup. That was a famous dish in my favorite restaurant in New Hampshire, The Common Man. It’s so wicked delicious. 

You can also replace your store-bought snack food with fried sweet potato chips. They are super good and so much better for you.

By the way, adding some fat to your sweet potatoes such as grass-fed butter, lard or tallow, or one of the healthy oils, such as olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado oil, can significantly increase absorption of the beta carotene.

If you want to cut down on oils in your baking, try to replace some of the oil with sweet potato puree. 

Don’t You Love Sweet Potatoes?

I hope you are as excited about growing sweet potatoes as I am. The plants are beautiful and the greens and tubers are so versatile and super healthy! You get great nutritious greens even in the heat of summer, and the sweet potato tubers are as delicious roasted or baked as they are in pies and cookies. I love having sweet potato tubers in my pantry and the greens in my freezer for winter. And I’m certain, that you’ll love growing them too!

Let me know how you like to eat sweet potatoes. Have you grown them before? What was your experience? And what are your favorite uses for sweet potatoes? If you have any questions, please ask in the comment section below. 

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