Someone asked if sweet potato greens are edible. A letter to Organic Gardening (Jul/Aug 94) says yes:

You can get more from your sweet potatoes by harvesting the tips (the above-ground growth) as well as the tubers. There is no tradition of eating these sweet potato greens as a vegetable in the United States, but they are a common food in a number of African and Asian countries.

Harvest them as you would turnip leaves. If you fall in love with the greens and want to grow some sweet potatoes only for their tops, you can harvest all the leaves about a month after planting. If you want a sweet potato harvest as well, you should carefully cut only a few leaves from each plant as it grows. Cook as you would any other type of green: Boil, saute or stir-fry. They're a bit too strong for me to eat raw, but they taste mild and sweet after cooking, similar to collard greens.

End of typing job.

I wonder if you could grow greens indoors by using bits of sweet potato in dishes of water? Anybody tried this?

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 28, 1999

Answers

Nope.

-- Cash Queen (RichLady@$$$.com), April 28, 1999.

My wife has one growing in a glass of water now. Simple to do.

Insert three or four toothpicks in the middle of the potato to provide support on the rim of the glass. Fill glass until water covers bottom of potato.

Ours is growing quite well in a window that gets no direct sunshine.

-- Still (Still@trying.com), April 28, 1999.

I think with sweet potatoes you have to use the entire tuber --

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), April 28, 1999.

Thanks Old Git, that was me. I have a sweet potato(e) in my window that I have not watered for 6 months and it has green leaves still. I started it out with water, but my attention span was about 2 weeks.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), April 28, 1999.