Plant · P-037

Sweet Potato

Ipomoea batatas

Sweet potato is really two crops from one planting: a starchy, colorful storage root underground and a mat of trailing vine above it that is itself a nutritious animal feed. The vine roots wherever a stem touches soil, so an established planting closes into a living mulch that shades out weeds and holds the surface in place. It wants a long hot season - growth stalls if summer nights stay cool - and the roots must be dug and cured before the first frost kills the vine. The vine can be cut back hard every few weeks for forage, but taking more than half of it at once cuts into the root harvest that follows.