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Buried Treasure

Long forgotten in the home garden, sweet potatoes are an ideal addition to the domestic plot: A few go a long way. With sweet potatoes, a patch of 12 to 25 plants will produce enough for a dozen meals, with a few extra for storing or planting out again next year.

There is a myth that these slow-to-mature, sun-loving plants must have the 10-month growing season and heavy heat of the deep South to produce their delicious tubers. In fact some short season sweets, like Georgia Jet, thrive as far north as Vermont. They’re one of the fastest-growing varieties, ready in just 80 to 90 days after planting slips. Their dark red skin and deep orange, moist flesh is full of Vitamin A.

Garden-grown sweets are sweeter and more flavorful than those found in supermarkets.  And that’s plenty enough reason to plant your own. Sweet potatoes are not related to the more traditional white and yellow potatoes from Ireland and Idaho. Potatoes are members of the nightshade family, which includes tomatoes, eggplant and tobacco. Sweet potatoes actually are tropical morning glories. As such, they are beautiful to grow. Their foliage is heart-shaped, ranging from blue-green to burgundy and purple; flowers are trumpet-shaped and generally pale pink or lilac.

Georgia Jet is a red-skinned variety that produces large, round sweet potatoes.

And if you’re curious about the difference between a sweet potato and a yam, you’ll find that most orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are often called yams. But in fact, true yams are not as common in the U.S. as are sweet potatoes. Yams are a thick-skinned, starchy subtropical native of the West Indies and Latin America.

When you’re ready to plant, opt for slips, which are small sprouts taken from mature potatoes. They should be planted singly in warm ground and spaced two feet apart.

Although sweet potato plants will thrive even with scant water, that will make them skimpy and the flesh less full-flavored. Water your sweets and keep them heavily mulched in between. The mulching is especially important because the thick-stemmed vines, as they trail along the ground, send out small rootlets to gather more moisture and nutrients.

It’s easy to grow sweet potatoes. Once established, sweet potatoes are utterly carefree. The trailing vines and foliage are lovely enough to qualify as ornamental plants all on their own.

Basically, though, after the slips are established and growing robustly, the gardener can ignore the sweet-potato patch until crisp fall days invite a peek under the thick vines and scooping aside soil to find the buried treasure. Lift them gently, using hands rather than a fork or spade, for they should not be damaged on their journey to the table.

A frost will kill the tender vines, and frozen ground damages the tubers, so they should all be lifted and stored before frost. If stored in an unheated garage or room, they will keep until Christmas, although the flavor after eight weeks won't be quite as rapturous as the taste of newly harvested sweet potatoes.

Next year, make room for twice as many: You will want a good deal more once you have tried them fresh from the garden.

Beauregard Sweet Potato Plant

Baked, boiled, grilled, fried, mashed, slow-cooked or used in pies or casseroles, sweet potatoes are effortless to prepare and a hit with everyone at your dinner table. They’re also easy to grow, so it’s a win-win for gardeners.

The Beauregard sweet potato plant produces tubers that mature in 80-90 days, making it well-suited for northern regions. It’s a plant with a high yield, so it’s a good choice for larger families or for taking to farmers’ markets. It’s a common supermarket sweet potato. The Beauregard has copper-colored skin, medium orange, moist flesh, and a uniform oblong shape.

This hybrid was developed at Louisiana State University, thus its 2nd moniker, the Louisiana Sweet Potato. Like all sweet potatoes, it’s high in beta carotene, which converts to Vitamin A in the body. It’s also high in copper and other minerals, as well as antioxidants and dietary fiber. You wouldn’t expect it, but sweet potatoes rank lower on the glycemic index than white-fleshed potatoes.

There are ornamental sweet potato plants that are used as foliage in container and hanging planters. However, the edible varieties, such as the Beauregard, are actually members of the morning glory family. This sweet potato plant, Ipomeoea batatas Beauregard, resists soil rot and white grubs, and it also resists cracking. The leaves of the Beauregard sweet potato are edible and contain the same nutritional benefits as many other greens, and they can be cooked the same way.

Sweet potatoes blend well with many other food flavors, such as pineapple, apple, raisins and coconut. A little butter and brown sugar are the perfect topper on a baked sweet potato. Chestnuts and pecans add an interesting texture to mashed sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are gaining in popularity as French fries and potato chips. The Beauregard sweet potato works well in all recipes, including the ubiquitous Southern sweet potato pie.

Set Beauregard sweet potato plants 12-15 inches apart in 3-foot rows in an area with full sun and space for these vines to spread. Make sure you choose a location with well-drained soil.

After harvesting, Beauregard sweet potatoes need to be cured in a warm location, at around 85 degrees, for 10-14 days, then they can be stored for two months or longer in 60-degree dark and humidity-controlled root cellar or other storage spot.

Sweet potatoes may be started from seed, sets (cuttings from potatoes) or starter plants. Gardeners will get the best results with healthy live plants. For growers in cooler regions, covering the soil with black plastic for a couple of weeks before the last frost will warm the soil, and the potatoes will grow and thrive the minute they’re planted.