Rosebud
Oxford
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:00 pm Post subject: Are Sweet Potato Vine tubers edible? |
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I didn't know they had potatoes but I was working around them and noticed something sticking out of the ground co I looked closer and dug up 2 large potatoes.Now, are they edible? Do you start new plants from the eyes like a regular potato? If not then how? I had lots of these plants last year but never pulled one up so I didn't know they had potatoes or maybe it would be called a bulb.If I can keep these over winter then I won't have to buy new plants every spring.Question is,how do I keep these over winter? Thank you for your help.
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toni
 Administrator
Plants Moderator
Regular Plants Contributor
North Texas, Zone 8a
Posts: 11251
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| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 12:57 am Post subject: |
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They don't have any taste, those are the tubers of the plants that multiply like bulbs do. You can keep them overwinter, some keep them in pots in a greenhouse or wash the soil off, let them dry and store them in a paper sack then replant in spring. If you have room, you can also leave them in their pot, let the foliage die back and the soil dry out and store them that way.
I have heard that they are very slow to come back tho, some have given up storing them and just bought fresh each spring.
Last spring I found a sweet potato in the kitchen that had started sprouting, I stuck in the the raised rose bed and let it grow. http://www.gardenstew.com/about17126.html I don't know what I will find when the vine dies and I dig around in there, it never did bloom but certainly covered the top of that bed well.
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To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with Spring ----
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Netty
Regular Plants Contributor
Southern Ontario zone 5a
Posts: 9959
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| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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I've never had luck re-planting Sweet Potato's. After reading Toni's post, perhaps I've been a little hasty by turfing them into the compost. I've just been buying fresh each year.
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cajunbelle
zone 8b Louisiana
Posts: 3256
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| Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 2:00 am Post subject: |
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Well, I have the sweet potato vine that ate lower French Settlement, here it is climbing the rose bush:
It was a tricolor, but didn't come back true to color, but come back it did. Every time I cut the grass I just mowed over it and it would send up new growth and keep going. Watch out, it may be coming for YOU!!!!!!!
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Sharon
Phil. 4:13
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ronmauldin
DFW Area, Texas, USA
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:02 am Post subject: We Cooked And Ate the Wild Sweet Potato |
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When we bought the sweet potato at a local nursery... we were thinking of plants for our garden... not just pretty vines. In the fall, we dug up the enormous red tubers.
My wife boiled them and I prepared them like whipped potatoes (add milk, butter, salt, pepper, bit of garlic).
The taste is similar to an Irish white potato, but sweeter.
I must tell you that I was quite excited about this find because I cannot eat standard Irish white potatoes due to the natural toxins in night shade family plants (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, goji, green peppers). For me, white potatoes are a "comfort food" and I have missed eating them.
Next year we plan to grow more of these "wild sweet potatoes" in our garden.
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glendann
Texas
Posts: 9228
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| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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My mom always baked them in the oven,like you would bake white potatoes.I never saw her boil them.She would put butter on them and eat them after peeling them.I do not like to eat sweet potatoes at all.
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bsewnsew
Posts: 2750
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:15 am Post subject: |
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Ha ha ha
I bought real sweet potatoes today. I am going to keep a few in the refrigerator till spring an try to grow some cuttings........
I also bpught a can of sweet tators to make a pumpkin loaf. I didnt have time to make one for turkey day, so I made it today when I arrived home.
Yummy.....
thanks all for the tips.
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Rosebud
Oxford
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:45 pm Post subject: Sweet potatoe vine |
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Thank you all so much for this information.I thought they should be edible.I'm going to try more next year.
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toni
Administrator
Plants Moderator
Regular Plants Contributor
North Texas, Zone 8a
Posts: 11251
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| Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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The ornamental Sweet Potato Vines are cultivars of the vegetable Ipomoea batatas, the green one is 'Margarita', the black one is 'Blackie' and 'Tricolor' has green, pink and white leaves.
They are edible but since they were not developed to be eaten they may not taste as good as the original.
I'm just going buy sweet potatoes at the grocery store and plant them, cheaper than buying the potted plants at a nursery. 
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To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with Spring ----
George Santayana
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