Sweet Potato Leaves are EDIBLE?! (2025)

The sweet potato vine is an unexpected bonus when you’re growing sweet potatoes — sweet potato leaves are edible! And even if you don’t plan to grow them in your garden, sweet potato greens can be grown inside as an edible houseplant.

Originally published March, 2014; this post has been updated.

Even if you don’t plan to grow and harvest sweet potato tubers from your garden, the leaves can be a valuable source of nutrition, especially during the cold months of winter.

Growing Sweet Potato Greens

Sweet potatoes are an herbaceous perennial vegetable. They’re drought tolerant, grow in many different climates, and in humid climates like mine, can be less prone to pests and diseases than other conventional greens. This makes them a perfect candidate for growing indoors in the off-season!

They sprout easily indoors and a happy sweet potato plant will produce leaves throughout the winter. Bonus? If you have a plant growing for the sweet potato leaves, you’ll have slips at the ready for planting in the garden!

Grow an Edible Sweet Potato Vine by Sprouting

You might remember doing this in school. It’s still just as easy. Choose an organic sweet potato at the store (non-organic potatoes are often treated with a chemical to prevent sprouting).

Insert several toothpicks around the center of the spud. Set the sweet potato inside a jar of water. The bottom of the potato should remain in water.

Alternatively, allow the tuber to sit on the bottom of a glass or jar, and add water so that the tuber is submerged halfway in water.

It will start sending out roots in a couple of weeks. Once there are a fair number of roots, watch for green sprouts emerging from the dry portion of the potato. These shoots will consist of a stem and leaves. They’re often called “slips” in garden-ese.

While you can use the leaves directly from a sweet potato sprouted in water, it won’t produce as long as a plant potted in soil will. Let’s talk about how to pot up your sweet potato slips so that you’ll have easy access to a fresh leafy green even when the growing season outside has passed!

How to Grow a Sweet Potato Vine in a Pot

To grow an edible sweet potato vine in a pot, you can transplant the entire sprouted sweet potato or create a number of potted plants by starting with slips.

Plant the sprouted tuber in a pot of well draining soil, as sweet potatoes are susceptible to root rot if the soil they’re in remains too wet. The entire tuber should be buried by about 2″ of soil.

My preference is to grow from slips, since doing so means that instead of a single plant, I’ll have several. Cut 10″ to 12″ lengths of sweet potato vine from your “seed” potato.

Trim leaves from the lower portion of the stem, leaving a couple of leaves at the tip for photosynthesis.

You can either plant these directly into a pot of soil or allow them to root in water first. If you plant directly into the soil, you’ll need to maintain steady moisture. If you choose to root them in water, watch for the emerging roots, just as you did with the potato. Once the roots are a few inches long, transplant into a container of good soil in bunches of three.

This method can be used for a winter crop of greens, but it’s essentially how they should be planted out in your garden for a root crop, too.

Set the potted sweet potato by a sunny, warm window and it will produce plenty of vines. Now you have an edible houseplant! You can eat the leaves cooked or raw.

Harvesting

Whether you’re growing sweet potatoes inside for the greens or growing a tuber crop outside, you can harvest the leaves throughout its life cycle.

Harvest leaves once the stems are at least a foot long, a month or two after planting. If you’re using leaves from a crop intended for root harvest, limit harvesting to a couple times a month. If you’re growing the plant specifically for the greens, you can harvest more often.

Harvest by using scissors or snips to cut off lengths of the vine. Choose a couple of the longest vines from each plant and be sure to leave several inches remaining so the plant will continue to grow.

Watch for Pests

While pests like flea beetles and aphids are problematic in outdoor sweet potato crops, indoor plants can be plagued by whiteflies.

White flies lay eggs on plants, stunting growth. White flies rising in a cloud will be the first indication that you have a problem.

These tiny flies hide well and are so tiny you may not notice them until there are dozens of them laying their eggs on the leaves of your plants.

Diatomaceous Earth (DE) sprinkled on the soil surface will take care of the larvae and stop their cycle. Replenish the DE once a month, or anytime you see adult white flies on your plants. Vacuum up the adult flies when you see them.

Using the Leaves

As a vegetable, sweet potato greens may be a bit obscure, but there’s plenty to love about the nutrition they offer. They contain vitamins A, C, K, B1, B2, B3, B9 and minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, manganese, copper.

Use the leaves as a replacement for fresh spinach in any of your favorite recipes or try one of these recipes:

• Sweet Potato Greens in Coconut Cream
• Stir-Fried Sweet Potato Greens in Chili

For another unexpected edible green, get to know purslane!

Source on nutrition: https://horticulture.ucdavis.edu/information/sweet-potato-leaves-family-nutrition-overview-research