I first learned about eating sweet potato greens many years ago when I worked for GrowMemphis. One of the community gardens I worked with grew sweet potatoes. Several of the gardeners were originally from West Africa. The potatoes themselves were less important, what the community members were really after were the greens. In that way it’s similar to turnips. I never knew until I moved to the south that people ate the greens, but here the leaves are at least as important, if not more so, than the root.
Sweet potato greens should be cooked. The flavor in mild, slightly floral, and in my opinion a little like chard although people often compare it to spinach. Because sweet potatoes are adapted to growing in hot temperatures, the leaves have less water in them than spring or fall greens, so you will want to add a little liquid while cooking. They can be used in place of spinach in any recipe, or try one of these preparations:
Stir fried sweet potato leaves
Liberian Red Oil Potato Greens
Saag Paneer with Sweet Potato Greens
When will the sweet potatoes be ready? This year’s sweet potato crop has started showing up at the farmers market. Ours are still a little ways off. Sweet potatoes take 90 to 120 days to grow. Ours didn’t get planted until June 10th, so I am waiting until September 10th before I stick a fork in the ground and check how they are doing. The ground hasn’t started mounding up yet, so I don’t think they’ll be ready for a couple more weeks.
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