How To Harvest Sweet Potato Leaves?

Harvesting Sweet Potato Greens – sarangib / Pixabay You can harvest sweet potato greens anytime, once the plant is settled in and growing well. After giving your young sweet potato plants time to start spreading and growing, just head out and trim the vines every week or so. Take the leaves off the vine, and toss the vine into your compost heap,

Wash the leaves in cool, fresh water and then pat them dry. If you need to store your sweet potato greens for a few days, keep the leaves slightly damp after washing them. Then, wrap them in a soft, cotton napkin and put them in a cool place. In fact, the veggie drawer in your refrigerator is a great place to store them.

Harvesting & Cooking Sweet Potato Leaves

If cleaned and stored properly, sweet potato greens can last up to 4 days in the refrigerator. Feel free to harvest regularly from your sweet potato plants. Take care to avoid over-harvesting, though. Leave a majority of the vine to continue growing, and give the plant time to recover between harvests.

How to harvest sweet potatoes?

How To Harvest Sweet Potatoes – Harvesting sweet potatoes is very similar to harvesting other types of potatoes. Basically, you need to dig down deep with a fork, as far away from the roots as you can, and try not to stab any potatoes on the way in! If you need a little more instruction, here’s a more detailed how-to:

1. If you want to, you can leave your sweet potatoes in the ground for a long time after the foliage have died back, and then dig around where the plants used to grow to find your spuds. If you are a little more keen to taste your harvested bounty, then read on!
2. As the growing season continues, the leaves will start to change from their usual, creeping, ground covering leafy foliage, to a wilted, yellow, and steadily dying leaf covering. This is the first sign that your sweet potatoes are ripening underground.
3. Once all the leaves have all turned yellow and started to wilt off the vine, your sweet potatoes should be just about ready – assuming that they are yellowing from ripeness not disease, and the plants have been growing for long enough.
4. Sweet potatoes generally take around 100 days (ish) from planting to harvesting, to keep an eye on the calendar as well as the leaves – if you make a note of when you planted them you can work out how long they have been in the ground.
5. If the weather turns frosty before you have started to harvest, you should get your sweet potatoes out of the ground immediately. These tubers won’t tolerate frost, so at any signs of freezing weather you need to whip them out of the ground at the first opportunity, no matter how well developed they are, otherwise you will lose the whole crop to rot.
6. Once you have established that your sweet potatoes are ready to harvest, then take your fork to the soil, a few feet out from the main plant. Dig the fork in deeply but gently, and lever out the soil carefully.
7. As you lift the soil, you will see tubers coming out of the earth. Gently pick each one off its stem and set it aside.
8. Once you have found the main crop from each plant, go through the soil carefully with your hands, as there may be small tubers that you have missed. Leaving even one small potato in the soil may mean that you end up with an unexpected plant where you did not want one next year!

How do you grow a sweet potato vine?

The Shape of the Leaf – Sweet potato leaves come in different shapes, depending on the variety. Leaves grow in a spiral around the stem. Leaves may be lobed or nearly divided and may have smooth or serrated edges. Leaves are slightly hairy to touch. They may be:

Cordate – shaped like a heart Hastate – shaped like a spear Reniform or kidney-shaped Rounded Triangular.

How long does it take to grow sweet potatoes?

How long until sweet potatoes are ready? – 90 to 120 days from planting to maturity, sweet potatoes need to be harvest before the first killing frost. The tubers will be in the top 10 inches of the soil. It is a good idea to cut off vines because you don’t have to.

How do I care for newly planted sweet potatoes?

Growing Sweet Potato Greens – Of all the potatoes, sweet potatoes are easiest to grow. Plant the sweet potato “slips” in spring because sweet potatoes need four to six months of consistently warm weather. Sweet potatoes prefer sandy, well-drained soil, full sun, and plenty of space for the vines to spread.

1. They love heat and won’t tolerate chilly weather or heavy, soggy soil.
2. Give the plants a head start by digging a little compost into the soil before planting, but avoid high-nitrogen fertilizers.
3. Newly planted potatoes like regular water, but once established, the plants require little moisture.
4. Mulch between the plants to keep weeds in check.

You can harvest sweet potato greens or young shoots any time during growth.