Do the sweet potato vines that are so popular in containers bare a crop?

Question

The last few years I noticed sweet potato vines are really popular as a filler in container/potted plant patio arrangements. Do they actually produce? Are there little sweet potatoes in the pot come late fall?

No, I'm talking about the Sweet potato vines. They don't flower at all, they are called sweet potato vine at the nursery...they grow huge long vines and the foliage is a light "pea green". The vines look just like those seen in the southern sweet potato farms.

hummm. Interesting I have never seen one of them bloom...

Answer 1

Previous answers don't make sense. I know the vine you're talking about. I had one in a hanging basket and it got left in the greenhouse over the winter. Come spring, I went to toss the basket and discovered it was full of tubers! This is an ornamental, so I wouldn't advise trying to eat them. Might be interesting to try propagating new plants from the tubers, though....

Answer 2

The ornamental sweet potato vines, which are generally used as kind of a draping plant in either hanging baskets or large mixed container plantings, will sometimes bear edible tubers. I have grown the dark purple-leaved one and another that had variegated green and white with a little pinkish-purple, and I have gotten small tubers with both. The size would have been impractical for eating, but they are actual sweet potatoes and edible. I have heard that they are not the quality that you would expect from a sweet potato grown specifically as a food crop, but it wouldn't be harmful to eat it. Might be an interesting experiment....

Answer 3

G'day mate. Maybe not the answer you are looking for, but.....

Here in Far North Queensland (Australia) Sweet potatoes are grown as a ground cover on traffic islands etc.. They are propagated by cuttings, and the tubers are edible.

I once worked on an Aboriginal community farm where the grew Sweet Potatoes, corn, bananas etc for local consumption. The vine cuttings are planted in groups of 3 and 4 out on mounds of soil. From memory they are a 12 month crop here and are harvested when the vines die back. I think the plants left growing on the traffic islands would regrow from the tubers.

Sorry for long answer. I hate getting long answers, don't you?

Answer 4

The ornamental "sweet potato vine" you speak of does not produce potatoes but rather lavender colored flowers. This plant is an annual.

Answer 5

Two commonly planted landscape plants called potato vine -- one with white flowers and one with purple flowers. Plants are not at all similar in form and neither bear potatoes.