Ideas for community gardens < roots

Sweet potato, also known as kumera, is one of humanity's ancient food crops.

Sweet potato sprouting

SWEET POTATO/ KUMERA

Botanic name

• Ipomoea batatas

Growth form

• perennial
• scrambling vine
• heart shaped or lobed leaves
• flesh colour of tuber variable – whitish, purplish, yellow

Edible part

• tuber – boiled, fried, roasted, steamed
• tips of young shoots cooked.

Cultivation

Growing:

• prefers warm conditions
• tolerates light shade
• plant as a ground cover in the orchard
• use as perennial living mulch in orchard or elsewhere.

Propagation:

• sprouting tuber planted
• from tip cuttings

Centre of diversity

• South America
• cultivated for thousands of years in South East Asia, Pacific Islands and New Zealand.

PAGE UPDATED... Thursday, 17 January 2002