Porto Rico Sweet Potato
ipomoea batatas

days to maturity: 110 days
plant spacing: 1 plant per square foot
sunlight requirement: 8 - 14 hours
look out for: whitefly
harvest notes: harvest whole vines for leaves, pull whole plant for tubers
season: summer

Porto Rico is a popular “bush variety” of sweet potato which means instead of making a trailing plant (like a pumpkin) it makes a compact mound. This makes it easier to manage in smaller spac- es like backyards. Did you know that all sweet potato leaves are edible when cooked? In large parts of Asia and Africa sweet potato leaves are a staple green used in stews and stir fries and is just as common as spinach is here. It’s good to know that sweet potatoes prefer bone meal and wood ash as soil amendments (for potassi- um and potash); but avoid nitrogen fertilizers like manure. A high nitrogen fertilizer will give you lots of leaves, but smaller roots. If youre looking for maximum root production, you should also be pruning the plant so it focuses its energy on root production.