The lowly sweet potato doesn’t get much attention. It is something many people only think about for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. White or ‘Irish’ potatoes are much more common. There are a dozen or more varieties of them taking up a whole shelf at most grocery stores while sweet potatoes are relegated to 1 small corner with 1 variety of super sweet bright orange potatoes.
Interestingly while many a gardener will purchase and plant ornamental sweet potato vines in their containers and all over their yard. Very few will try growing edible sweet potatoes (which by the way can also be quite an attractive addition to your garden). And we will guiltily admit, its something we never bothered to try growing before moving here. Despite growing ornamental sweet potatoes, always having a large vegetable garden, and growing a rainbow of ‘Irish’ potatoes, we never bothered to even try sweet potatoes.
Luckily, moving south to a very different climate with different soil has pushed us to rethink gardening in many ways. Living on the coast in zone 8 gardening glorified beach sand we struggled to grow nice crops of white potatoes, so we tried sweet potatoes. After growing them through drought for the past few years, we have come to believe that the lowly sweet potato deserves way more credit than it gets. And we are here to tell you why.
White potatoes can be hard to grow
Most gardeners who have tried growing potatoes have grown white potatoes. Seed potatoes are readily available in the spring in most places. However many gardeners have also been disappointed and given up after trying it a few times.
If you have ever tried growing white potatoes, then you know why so many people give up. You know how much work and expense they are. You have to purchase expensive, clean seed potatoes each year to avoid bringing in diseases. Then you must dig a trench to plant them, and then you have to hill and weed them repeatedly as they grow. If you don’t you’ll get a poor crop or green, inedible potatoes.
Potatoes are in the nightshade family along with tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. So they are susceptible to many of the same devastating diseases including late blight (which was responsible for the potato famine in Ireland). Worse yet, anywhere in this country they will be devastated by Colorado Potato Beetles if you aren’t quick to kill any that arrive on your plants. Scouting/killing beetles must be done at least daily resulting in a huge time commitment.
And then there is the pesky problem of temperature. Potatoes are a cool season crop that requires acidic fertile soil to yield a good crop, so they can be difficult to grow in many of the warmer parts of the country resulting in disappointingly poor yields for the amount of labor invested in them.
Not so with sweet potatoes!
Sweet potatoes are incredibly easy to grow, and are a plant it and forget it crop for our farm. In the summer life is incredibly busy around here, so any crop that will give us a good yield with minimal care is a star. They even help reduce weeding in other crops. We plant sweet potatoes underneath tall crops like tomatoes and corn, and because they are an excellent ground cover we don’t have to weed them all season.
Sweet potatoes have no major pest or disease problems. They require no spraying or bug picking. They require no trench to plant, and no hilling. Weeding is limited to a couple times before the canopy closes. Plus they are tough! Despite no irrigation or attention through last year’s very hot summer of drought, they still gave us a nice crop.
Now if you are a northern gardener you may have to experiment a little bit and will have to seek varieties for short seasons, or perform some season extension tricks (which we will talk about in a future blog post) to get a good crop. It can be done though! My grandfather used to grow beautiful crops of sweet potatoes in Vermont every year.
You might be thinking ‘But sweet potatoes aren’t versatile in the kitchen like white potatoes’
BUT that is a myth that big ag would lead you to believe. Sweet potatoes are actually quite variable like ‘Irish’ potatoes are. They come in a range of colors, textures and flavors, not just the orange variety you see in the store. There used to be dozens, probably even hundreds of different sweet potato varieties each as different as the individuals, cultures, and climates they were grown in.
This is something that I had never stopped to consider until moving to the Eastern Shore. Once here I started hearing about this ‘Hayman’ sweet potato that is a local delicacy with almost a cult following. And guess what? Its a white sweet potato.
So, this year in addition to the traditional sweet orange potato, we grew some ‘savory’ sweet potato varieties. After being forced to do the the required taste tests ourselves, we think they would be great substitutes for regular potatoes. The varieties we grew were O’Henry, All Purple, and Red Japanese.
O’Henry
O’Henry is white skinned and white fleshed. It was traditionally grown as an ‘Irish’ potato substitute in the south because they were easier to grow. We agree they are easy to grow and gave us a good yield. Best of all they are moist and delicious without even a hint of that traditional ‘sweet potato’ flavor. They are highly versatile, and a perfect, exact substitute for white potatoes. Honestly aside from being the usual sweet potato shape, you’d probably never know it was a sweet potato. It makes an incredibly rich loaded baked potato and, we can’t wait to try it in so many other dishes!
All Purple
All Purple is just that PURPLE. Inside and out it is a bright pretty purple color. It maintains this purple color even when cooked. This particular potato is less moist than orange sweet potatoes. It is dense and very starchy. It is not sweet and has a rich ‘earthy’ flavor. We think it would be good in stews or paired with a slow cooked pot roast. We found it to be a vigorous grower. The only downside is that it was a bit more tricky to dig. It isn’t as good at growing all its potatoes in clumps as some of the other varieties. Nonetheless it is an incredibly beautiful potato just bursting with healthy antioxidants–up to 3x as many as blueberries.
Red Japanese
Red Japanese is another unique potato. This variety has white flesh with bright red skin. It is very mildly sweet. You get just a hint of the ‘sweet’ flavor when you first put it into your mouth, then it mellows into a mild rich flavor. It has dry, smooth flesh, and makes pretty awesome oven fries. This variety is both sweet and savory enough that we think it could be extremely versatile, crossing effortlessly from traditional sweet dishes to savory ones.
For you more northern growers, this would be a good ‘savory’ variety to try growing. It is a short season variety that can still perform well without optimal heat and season length. It requires only 90-105 days to reach maturity.
Sweet potatoes are versatile in other ways too!
Unlike white potatoes, sweet potatoes are an attractive ornamental plant in the morning glory family. They are a twining vine with lush, deep green heart shaped leaves, are pretty enough to tuck somewhere in almost any garden. Mid to late summer they will reward you with pretty purple morning glory flowers. If you already grow ornamental sweet potatoes in your garden, try switching them out for an edible variety that can serve 2 purposes next summer!
An added sweet potato bonus that I bet almost no one knows is that the whole entire plant is edible, nutritious, and delicious.
You know how cool season greens like lettuce tend to become bitter and bolt or die just as all those juicy heirloom tomatoes are ripening? If you grow sweet potatoes, their leaves could be that warm season ‘lettuce’ you need for your salads. They can also be substituted for spinach or other greens in most any cooked dishes.
Since they love heat and humidity, sweet potatoes are growing vigorous, tender new growth in the summer. Even with this year’s drought the leaves were tender and mild tasting mid summer. Admittedly, they are more flavorful than most lettuce. They also aren’t as ‘fluffy’ in a salad because the leaves aren’t crinkled like lettuce, but if you like other greens like spinach, chard, mustards, beet greens etc., you should definitely give sweet potato leaves a try!
We hope that this has inspired you to find some space for sweet potatoes in your garden next season!
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