It's Ornamental Sweet Potato Time

I just leave mine in the pots in the greenhouse all winter and they start whenever they think it's time.

I had a sweet potato from the grocery store that got forgotton. One day I noticed how it was growing "plants" That was May of 07! I would pick the stems off and put in vases of water. They stayed o.k. a couple of weeks. I just changed the water out with new every few weeks. That sp lasted till April 08. It finally began to rot. Almost a year!
I got another one in April and I am trying to get them to grow in a pot instead of water.
so far they are doing good.
Pretty neat it lasted so long:)
The pic. is of the sp that lasted almost a year.
Yall are talking about another kind of sp??

Aaaah, yeah! in a sense. The ornamental SPs are just hybridized to have more foliage or different leaf style. However a sweet potato is a sweet potato. I raise enough of the SPs for the table, to last all winter. I also start and raise some of the ornamentals too. There a few DGers that come to the Iowa RU ,that like for me to trade SPs to them. So in the spring I'm trying to get some to sprout and pulling the sprouts off and rooting them. so I have enough for trading.
The ( table) my word are bred for the storage roots, size color, texture and flavor.
I would think it would be concieveable to grow a sweet potato all year long indoors with proper lighting, and humidity. This a Blackie I was sprouting.
Russ

Here is one hill's worth of The Centennial ( table) SPs.
This year I have added Vardaman,Beauregard and Georgia Jets, to my garden. The Vardaman is more of a bush type. Not as much space needed for all of the vines.

Years ago, women would put a sweet potato in a jar just the size so about half of it would be down in the water but the other end was too big and stuck out of the jar. It would grow a pretty green vine, but these were just ordinary sweet potatoes. Sometimes one would circle the entire kitchen. They would suspend it with something or another along the wall. They didn't rot for several years. Usually what happened was that the potato eventually used up all its stored sugars and of course "starved" to death. Even cafes would have sweet potato vines for ornamentation.

I'm not sure that the ornamental types are hybridized. I think growers noticed that some had mutated in the field and they kept them and grew them again and selected the most attractive vines and sold them to suppliers. Eventually sports have developed that are black (purple), chartruese, variegated, bronze, green and yellow, and so on- and distinctive leaf shapes have been developed by the process of selection also. It's possible there are hybrid programs now, because there's lots of money to be made off these, but when the ornamental sweet potato craze began with blackie and margarite, they were simply naturally occuring genetic "mistakes" that breeders took advantage of. It happens continually with animals and plants.

Here is my sp this time. I got it in April. I've already got a few in a 4 1/2" pot and they seem to be doing o.k. so far. It's my first time trying in soil instead of water. I'm proud of them though:)

the pot of "sprouts"

Are these ornamental sp's or the eating type?

What are you going to do with them? Plant them to raise sweet potatoes to eat, or in pots as a decorative plant?

they are the eating type. My first was bought to eat with cinn/butter- but forgot about it till I noticed it was growing "pretty" leaves. So I just started putting them in vases to root and decided they looked and did good in water. The potted one is new, but it seems to be doing o.k. so far. I have no idea what I'm doing with them. They are for looks only. I don't expect I'll grow any.
It's fun though

Thanks DP; I was repeating what someone else had said once. But it is the foliage for the ornamentals and the main focus is the root for the table variety.
And we like them all.( Ipomoea batatas)
Russ