Featured Plant: Sweet Potatoes
Some vegetables really need to hire better PR people. The poor sweet potato suffers from being confused with the yam. No relation. And the potato. No relation. Sweet potatoes are high in fiber and good sources of Vitamins A & C. How many sweet foods can claim that?
Although they're available year round, they're in season in November and December, making them popular holiday foods. But did you ever think of growing your own sweet potatoes and having a few baby sweet potatoes to snack on in early fall? Or harvesting sweet potato greens all summer? Unfortunately sweet potatoes need a fairly long growing season and a good amount of space, but it's nice to try growing everything at least once, just to know what they're really supposed to taste like.
Looking for Something Different for the Holiday Table?
- Sweet Potato Patties
- Kurikinton Recipe (Japanese New Year Food)
- Caribbean Spiced Sweet Potatoes
- Vegan Pralined Sweet Potatoes
Photo by Scott Bauer. Provided by USDA Ag. Research Service.
Comments
I grew up eating the REAL sweet potatoes from my grandmother’s garden. My favorites!
Great info in your article!
Cameron
I’m supposed to be a gardening expert yet i have always called yams sweet potatoes.I know they are not the same but it has been stuck in my head since child hood.
Sort of fits in with your other article on botanical names.Common names can be confusing.
I planted sweet potatoes from slips for the fiirst time this year. Easy enough to do- but when do I know they are ready for harvest? Are they the same as potatoes in that respect?
Rob, they are a lot like harvesting regular potatoes, except they take longer to mature. If you eat the greens, you can snip them at any time during the summer.
By late summer, you can start taking a few tubers from the edges of the bed. They may not be as large as they’ll get, but they’ll be good.
Harvest the whole crop when a frost is expected or when the tops start to die back. Once the leaves are damaged, the tubers will start to go downhill.