I have a friend in southeast Asia and I asked the simple question: do you know anything about edible-leaf sweet potatoes?

Well, she hit the jackpot when she found this link ...okay, it happens to be written in the Thai language but it's got lots of recipes and photos;
try Google translate:
http://www.bansuanporpeang.com...

I picked up some sweet potato starts on a whim in late spring, and was clueless as to how much space they can hog. I was clueless as to growing them at all, aside from ornamental varieties. Some of those vines trailed 20 feet or more. They ended up covering the rows and creeping into neighboring beds. After a light frost the leaves were all withered, and I started digging. This is 5 or 6 hills dug, still have a few to go.




This one weighs 4.8 lbs.!



The vines in mid summer.

My, my, my, Neal. You did good!

I hope my Vardaman sweet potatoes do half as well. Like you, my sweet potato vines/leaves kind of took over my whole 20x10' raised bed. Unfortunately mine still are full of lush leaves (no frost here) and I am waiting on die-back to start the digging. I want to get my garlic in, but the potatoes have to come out first!

They sure do spread out Neal, That's a really big one. I used to grow Georgia Jets, but quit because I got so many big ones like that, one was as large as a head of cabbage.

Those monsters are a real booger to dig! They're growing in a 3-4 year old pile of mulch, I think the looseness of the growing medium helped get some big ones, and it surely helps the digging process.

Neal, they keep for awhile. You won't have to spend much money buying food for weeks. Roast them and make battered chips out of them. Congratulations.

Ooohhh, battered chips sound great! I love them baked, mashed, just about any way, ...well, aside from what I grew up knowing at holidays with marshmallows and a lot of sugar. That just about turned me against sweet potatoes, LOL.

I tried a strange, but amazingly delicious recipe, Sweet Potato Poutine. A platter of sweet potato fries (chips), smothered in sausage cream gravy, with dollops of creamy goat cheese melting into the hot gravy, topped with fresh sage. I've served it to guests twice, and they couldn't stop raving- there is never any left over.

I will have to try that, Neal. I just can't get my head around the taste. We eat sweet potatoes quite often and always when I grill Alaskan salmon. I don't know what to expect with my Vardaman sweet potato crop, but am hopeful I will get lots of sweet potatoes. When cured properly, and stored properly, they should actually last for months.

I must try too.

I grilled a slab of Alaskan king salmon and a slab of Alaskan halibut tonight, both marinated with olive oil/white wine/herbs and then topped the halibut with a nice salsa to finish. We baked sweet potatoes as the side dish. No left-overs!

That sounds delicious, Ken !

I decided that I could overwinter a couple of clippings indoors. I picked the ones that looked healthiest, and soaked them and the pot of dirt underwater for two hours. Hopefully, they are clean of bugs now. The vines can grow until June 2015, and then I'll cut into 12 pieces, and replant outside

A method I used for propagating an ornamental sweet potato was one I heard a gardener say he used for edibles. I had stored a huge tuber from 'Margarita', and the following spring placed it horizontally in a shoe box sized container, covered with moist potting soil. When the sprouts reached 4-6" in length, I pulled them off the tuber and planted them. When I had all I needed, I put the whole thing in a planter. You can get lots of plants from one tuber! That's how I plan to start next years plants.

Yes, I cut slips off and plant. I don't actually use a tuber.

Y'all are making me impatient to dig my sweet potatoes. We're still in the mid 40s at night, so I'm letting them grow, but it seems strange to not have dug them so late in the year. I trialled a number of long season varieties this year, so I guess the wait is a good thing...

You will have to share your results when you dig them. I've been enjoying mine a lot since digging them.

I put the last s.p. plant into a pot outdoors last fall to see how long it would last. It died first frost, but look what it produced for spring planting

Quite the harvest for a single pot! What size pot did you use?

It's a 12" pot. Most tubers are only 1/2" thick, but i think they will still grow.