In the united states most gardeners grow sweet potatoes for the big sweet tubers.
Sweet potato vine tubers edible.
Grow your own sweet potato vines.
It is important to have a fertilizer that is high in potash in order to encourage tuber or root growth.
While it is the same species as its edible relative ornamental sweet potato vines are bred for their incredible leaves rather than their tasty tubers.
All cultivars share the traits of plain though still edible white tubers and sprawling growth.
Bulb like tubers grow just beneath the surface of the soil.
Growth habits sweet potatoes fill out quickly and can take over small spaces.
However the leafy green tops are edible too.
Overwintering sweet potato tubers.
Purple vine plants are common as are green red bronze and even multicolored.
If you ve never tried eating potato vine leaves you re missing out on a tasty highly nutritious veggie.
If the energy of the plant is going to flower growth and production then other areas like the tubers will suffer.
That means the tubers it forms are actually edible.
I recently pulled out a decorative sweet potato vine as i was cleaning out my planters for the season and found huge tubers under the soil.
They are bred for the beauty of their leaves rather than edible tubers and the vines from these plants make them look more like a morning glory or clematis than a member of the potato family.
The ornamental varieties are simply cultivars of the species plant.
Sweet potato vine winter care.
However the leafy green tops are edible too.
One of the easiest ways to create multi seasonal interest in the garden is to use plants with interesting foliage.
Are the tubers from the ornamental sweet potato vine edible.
If you have space you can simply bring the plants indoors and grow them as houseplants until spring.
Ornamental sweet potatoes are the same species as the edible kind but they have been selected for their interesting foliage not their tasty roots you ll need lots of brown sugar and.
Ornamental sweet potato vines are in the same family as edible sweet potatoes and are in fact the same species.
With edible sweet potatoes as with most root crops and herbs it is important to remove any flowers.
Often grown in container gardens for its trailing stems of purple chartreuse or variegated foliage ornamental sweet potato vine is actually related to the sweet potatoes you d grow in your vegetable garden.
Sweet potato vine ipomoea batatas named for its edible cousin is an ornamental warm season annual grown for its attractive leaves and vining habit the foliage lends a tropical feel to the garden and comes in a range of colors and varying forms.
Popular varieties like marguerite have small round tubers while varieties like blackie have longer narrower tubers.