My Annual Sweet Potato Vine Taste Testing (Yes, You Can Eat Ornamental Sweet Potatoes)

I've mentioned that a lot of people have come to my blog by doing a search to see if ornamental sweet potatoes are edible.  I've always wondered if they decided to try them or not, because there are not many sources that say they are edible.  The fact of the matter, is that most of the potatoes turn out small, and may not be worth it for those who are not very patient with washing the little things.

The first photos were taken October 26th, when it looked like we were going to have a frost.  I did not plant flowers in with the ornamental sweet potatoes, like I have in the past, hoping the potatoes would be good sized.  The 'Little Blackie' ended up having a few blooms off on on much of the season, which I enjoyed. Can you see the bloom in the middle of the tub on the right side?

 After starting to pull up the plants, I found this 'Bronze' Sweet Potato that had been almost buried by the other vines.  It is the vine that is going up the fence on the left side of the above photo.  I did the harvesting myself, and took photos of which was which so that they wouldn't get mixed together like they did last year.

 These are the potatoes from the 'Bronze' plant.

This is 'Illusion Midnight Lace'.  I was amazed at all of the thin and thick roots that weren't developed into potatoes.

Most of the potatoes were quite small, so not planting flowers with them didn't seem to make a difference.  Maybe they would have been larger if I'd planted fewer plants in the pots.

The 'Marguerite' gave me a nice sized potato and a small one.  I was going to try cooking those thick roots, but they dried out, since I didn't get to them until today.

I had also stuck a sweet potato plant in that is grown for food, but it was so crowded, it only produced this one potato.

The rest of the photos were taken today.

See how organized I was?  I had to be in order to remember which potato was which.  I baked the larger potato with some regular sweet potatoes we had dug another day.  By comparing the size of the potatoes to the tags, you can see they were small.  Two years in a row,  I microwaved them, and they splattered.  Last year, I convection baked them in my electric oven.  This year, I baked them in the gas oven we now have.  I decided not to use the convection feature this time.

I forgot to pay attention to how long I baked them, but it was probably around 20 minutes.  I arranged them on the plate in the same order as the tags.  (When I read one of my previous posts, I saw I had baked the smaller ones 20 minutes.)

I sprayed them with a little margarine, and put some freshly ground pepper on them.

I called Larry up from his man cave to take a few photos.  (We're enjoying the new kitchen, and I'm excited that I got the appliances paid off this month.)

I took notes.  Can you tell from my face there was one I didn't like as well?

I wrote that the 'Marguerite' tasted fine, but was a little dry.  I didn't get a chance to try the larger one, but it's probably moister than the small one.  (It was.)  'Little Blackie' was a little sweeter, and more moist.  'Bronze' was the one I didn't like as well.  I did eat the rest of it, though.  'Midnight Lace' was moist and sweet.  I think that was my favorite this time.  Heidi likes to be in the kitchen when we are.  We don't give her people food, but she still hopes we'll drop something and not notice it. 

Whether you've found this post doing a search, or are one of my fellow bloggers, please leave a comment and let me know if you have cooked and eaten your ornamental sweet potatoes before.   If you don't blog, you can still leave a comment, and check the "anonymous" box.  If you've done a similar post, please put a link to it in a comment.  Here's a link to my other posts on ornamental sweet potatoes.  This will appear first now, so you'll need to scroll down to see the others.

Happy fall!  Have a great weekend, and enjoy that extra hour.  A local radio announcer mentioned this morning that people keep saying we get an extra hour of sleep this weekend, but that we could use that hour for reading a book or something.  Maybe I'll do some blog reading.

Darla mentioned a Proven Winners article that said ornamental sweet potatoes are edible.  Remember, I don't advertise, and do not promote any company, but since their 'Midnight Lace' was the one I liked the best, and the article is pertinent to the subject, I put the link in.  I have found the potatoes to be stringy if microwaved, but not as much when baked in the oven.  Thanks, Darla!