Sweet potatoes store extremely well at room temperature. Heres one from last year that has been stored in a kitchen cabinet since it was harvested, and was the same one I got the sprouts from for this years crop.
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I agree. That’s why I prefer them over regular potatoes. My basement isn’t cool enough for regular potatoes to last more than a month or two. But most varieties of sweet potatoes I can store all year.
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Not to mention they taste better, cook faster, and arguably are a bit more nutritious.
While they are deer magnets, I think they get credit in the garden for not being yet another solanum, which helps with pest cycles and such. And they make great ground cover.
In my book, they win out. I will likely never grow potatoes. I grow sweet potatoes almost every year.
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This is such a good point. My potatoes just become hornworm magnets. Which is a problem since like nearly every non-winter garden fruit is in the solunum family. While my sweet potatoes get destroyed by armyworms, they at least aren’t a species specific pest (apperently they eat pawpaws 
) and I will have those no matter what. And I can feed the leaves to my chickens.
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You guys really have me curious as to who is consuming the greens and making slips of the rare sweet potatoes this winter? Sweet Potato Cultivation - Propagation
By the way you guys are doing an impressive job of growing sweet potatoes. I’m really impressed about the great varities i see and wonderful yields you are getting!
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Once I harvest a new variety I only grow it from my own slips after that. I have better results that way since you can get the timing just right for your area and there isn’t the stress of shipping.
As for the greens we really enjoy them. When I met my wife 15 years ago I didn’t even know you could eat sweet potato greens. Growing up in Vietnam she was shocked at how many things an Iowa boy didn’t know were edible. 
One thing I’ve noticed though is there definitely is a difference in the greens from one variety to the next and some are better tasting than others. We’ve settled on a variety called Delaware Purple for that purpose as it has really nice tasting leaves and shoots. I throw a few slips in a garden bed and we just use those for our summer greens. And Delaware Purple usually still gives decent sized roots even after a summer of harvesting the leaves.
Beauregard also has nice tasting leaves but I’m not as big of a fan of the roots.
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Ours are common georgia jet, I feed the greens and skins to our cattle a little at a time. I think it must be like spaghetti to them. I root and slip the small ones to plant next year.
Sweet potato butter
Baked sweet potato chips
Fixin to can up some.
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There’s a ton of Asian recipes for sweet potato leaves and i know a few people who grow them just for the leaves.
I love them myself as well 
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I am going to have to try the sweet potato greens. I knew they were edible, but for some reason have never eaten them. I guess I thought it might set the roots back too much if I harvested any leaves. But maybe I’ll just take a few per plant or grow a few plants just for the leaves. They must be delicious and nutritious because the critters love them!
And ooooohhh, sweet potato butter. Never thought of that but I will have to make some and can it when I have a good harvest.
I kind of negate the health benefits of my sweet potatoes because my favorite way to eat them is sweet potato pie with its creamy brown sugar cinnamon sweet potato filling. I much prefer sweet potato pie to pumpkin pie. I don’t think I ever had a pumpkin pie growing up in Alabama. We just had sweet potato pies because those sweet taters just seem to last almost forever after harvest with no special care or storage needs.
Sandra
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I am planning to maximize space. Seeking some variety recommendations that can mature in 100 days and has compact/ less sprawling vines.
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There’s a variety from south Korea that tastes just like a pumpkin pie with similar texture as well. No idea what it is
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I grew and enjoyed Vardaman a few years back.
I also grew Bush Porto Rico, but that seemed to have a lower yield and the potatoes weren’t as big at harvest, so I expect they might be challenged in a short season. Edit: I just looked at Bush Porto Rico is listed as having a maturity of 120 days, so definitely not what you’re looking for. They were very tasty though!
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Do you have a good source for these? I might like to try them since I have noticed some types don’t make the best greens, so it is worth growing one just for the greens if it is above average.
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I get them from Sandhill Preservation. He’ll start accepting orders November 15. It’s by mail only but he has the largest selection I know of.
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Harvested my sweet potatoes last weekend. I was still irrigating so the soil was wet and it made digging difficult but I got as many as I could find. I only broke one. hoping it can still be salvaged. of all the varieties I grew, Camote Morado did the best (purple variety) but the others were further from the house so they had a lot of pressure from groundhogs eating the leaves periodically throughout the season so their small size could be expected. I also grew Camote Rosita, and Japanese. I grew 18 slips in total, with ~3 slips each in 20 gallon grow bags. All slips were purchased from Sandhill Preservation. none of mine were weird shapes for the most part so that is nice. this was my first year growing sweet potatoes and if they taste good, I’ll certainly be doing them again next year. if anything, the yields and ease of growing far surpassed any attempt at growing potatoes, that’s for sure. hoping I can grow slips from some of the smaller ones in spring 2025 so I don’t have to buy new ones.
all of the sweet potatoes laid out in a single layer in a long cardboard box to dry out for a few days in my garage before I cure them.
Also some of the skin rubbed off one of the purple ones so you can see the deep purple interior.
the largest one is in my hand for scale. I got about 6-7 this size.
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Four 30 gal lick tubs worth of the potatoes.
Picture makes them look small, but some are quite large.
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@Bigmike1116 Looking forward to your taste report on Camote Morado Mike. That’s one I’ve had my eye on.
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