Description
Description:
Purple sweet potatoes grow on sprawling vines with large, lobed, purple – tinged leaves. Vines are vigorous and will climb anything they touch and send down roots wherever they find soil. Can be grown in containers as long as the vines have a structure to climb, or can take over an entire veggie patch and provide you with kilograms of nutritious food. Sweet potato leaves are edible although this variety produces fairly tough leaves which are best cooked. The tubers have a purple skin and deep purple flesh which can be cooked in the same ways as the more common orange sweet potato. They tend to be drier and firmer than the orange varieties.
Planting instructions:
Plant at soil level. Ideally, bend long stems over and cover with soil, leaving leaves uncovered. This method of planting will facilitate the production of additional tubers along the stem, as opposed to planting upright. Water daily for the first two weeks, after which water during dry periods. Tubers are most commonly harvested in Autumn. If grown in an area with ‘hard frosts’, some tubers should be reserved over Winter from which to grow new plants the following Spring, however the plants do not die off over Winter in areas with only light frosts.
