Subject: Re: young Sweet potatoe leaves taste beautiful - don't waste it all as fora

From: YankeePerm <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 12:19:13 EST

In a message dated 12/30/97 11:35:43 PM, [email-masked] wrote:

<<why waste sweet potatoe leaves as forage Dan?

we eat them year round here - it is far more satisfying than beans and peas,

the chickens and snails usually let it alone when the chickens escape.

i never dig it up unless it gets in the way of other plants.

i have white, pink and purple varieties, they are easy to grow from the

stock in

fruit and vegetable shops.

my favourite recipe:

fry a few Spanish onions in olive oil, until clear (sweet)

add sliced mushrooms, sweet potatoe new leaves (these are the purple shoots)

and some grapefruit juice, put a lid on the pan and turn the heat down.

serve hot when steamed (5-10 min)

as for forage - it all boils down to whether the sweet potatoe leaf has
inbuilt 

toxins as do many greens,

we don't eat it much as a salad green because i haven't checked this out,

maybe someone on the list knows.

April

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April Sampson-Kelly ADPA,BCA,MCA,GradSci,PDC

LC Permaculture Visions

leaders in permaculture learning by correspondence

[email-masked]

[email-masked]

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~askpv

GOOD PLANETS ARE HARD TO FIND

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-----Original Message-----

From: YankeePerm <[email-masked]>

To: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>; [email-masked]

<[email-masked]>; [email-masked]

<[email-masked]>

Date: Wednesday, 31 December 1997 3:03

Subject: Sweet potatoes as leafy forage?

>Ok, I was digging sweet potatoes (Ipomea batcas) yesterday and looking at

the

>zillions of little roots that never got big in amongst the hand-fillers and

>thinking, there is a use for these.  In the past, we had rabbits and we fed

>them to the rabbits.  For various reasons unrelated to the pleasures of

eating

>rabbit, we have not got any yet at Barking Frogs Farm.

>However it occurs to me that I can place the little tubers under mulch in

the

>pasture, which is often wet, and grow the leaves as forage for my steer

(soon,

>I hope, to be joined by a few Asian water buffalo).  I'm not sure how much

>forage the tubers will stand.  I'm also not sure if I allow them to

>"perennialize" if I will be breeding the little root borers that ruin sweet

>potatoes when grown repeatedly from roots (vs "slips")

>I'm thinking that these will go well in wetter parts of the pasture (well

we

>have an acre under water at the moment--not there!).  One produces slips by

>putting roots in a wet environment.  Storage roots are important only to

the

>extent that they enable the plants to survive grazing cycles.

>Does anyone have any experience using sweet potato LEAVES as forage?  How

>about water spinach?  (either I reptans or I aquatica)

>The present sweet potatoes are part of a year long cycle I use here for

>bringing land into cultivation.  First I grow Andean (white) potatoes by

>throwing cut pieces on the ground and covering with mulch. I generally

>broadcast a bit of bone meal to help the potatoes repell Colarado potato

>beetles. As I harvest the white potatoes, I transplant sweet potatoes after

>them (They are very unrelated).  Generally, I supplement the mulch over the

>growing season as it melts away rapidly in our hot, humid climate.  Being

near

>our poultry house, the sweet potatoes got a bit of litter from coop

cleaning

>as well.  Now, digging the sweet potatoes I'm cutting through remaining

tree

>roots so that less competitve plants might make a go here.  Next can come

>anything, legumes, greens, etc.  It is an easy way to move into garden

spaces,

>particularly when one first occupies a site and there is SO much to do.  We

>have gotten quite respectible crops of both white and green spuds.

>So, now I want to hear from folks who can tell me about sweet potato as

>forage.  I don't need to reinvent any wheels!

>For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since

1982),

>Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,

>consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence

>courses via email.  One is now underway.  Next Live program:  Paraguay,

>8/10-22/98. Internships available. Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway,

>P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA  [email-masked]

>We don't have time to rush.

>A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at

>http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html

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<DIV>why waste sweet potatoe leaves as forage Dan?
we eat them year round 

here - it is far more satisfying than beans and peas,
the chickens and snails 

usually let it alone when the chickens escape.
i never dig it up unless it 

gets in the way of other plants.
i have white, pink and purple varieties, 

they are easy to grow from the
stock in
fruit and vegetable shops.
my 

favourite recipe:
fry a few Spanish onions in olive oil, until clear 

(sweet)
add sliced mushrooms, sweet potatoe new leaves (these are the purple 

shoots)
and some grapefruit juice, put a lid on the pan and turn the heat 

down.
serve hot when steamed (5-10 min)<<

Since this is a permaculture list and I have already indicated that I grow
sweet potatoes in the inner zones, partly for garden development, it seems
obvious that "wasting" the greens is not the issue.  I don't grow my greens in
zones 3 and 4.  I KNOW I can eat them, and no, there are no significant toxins
unless the plants are grown in toxic soil.  The vines are excellent stock
feed, I already know this, also, and, at harvest of the tubers,  worth
carrying to a rabbit cage, also in zone I but no out to zone 4 where the steer
is roughing it.  He eats a lot of things I could eat, not the least of which
are the local maypop vine, the only non-toxic Passiflora leaf I know of.
(Most have cyanide in them)  

Sweet potato recommends itself, as I have already written, because it
tolerates wet (and yet is very drought resistant--perfect to our sand, subject
to flooding), grows rapidly, and, I HOPE, can withstand sever grazing (it WILL
be grazed selectively) by resprouting from storage roots.  Thats the part I
don't know about, plus I don't know what trampeling by hooves will do.  I've
not tried to grow the vines with grass and weeds--I'm hoping it will smother
some bad weeds, another area I don't know about.  With about 1/4 of the
pasture under water at the moment (eventually to be taken out of pasture and
put into chinampas, but that is a slow process), I'm looking at its cousin,
the water spinach.  The state of Florida has made water spinach an illegal
plant, so OF COURSE I would not consider it, but maybe sweet potato.  Do the
vines float like water spinach?  Can anyone tell the difference?  I'm also
considering watercress for this section of pasture until I get around to
cultivating it (maybe 10 years).  Yes, I also know that people can eat
watercress.  I've seen gattle standing in water (well more like dilute sewage)
in Mexico eating the lushest watercress you can imagine, so I know this can
work.  IN this case, I can re-infect the pasture from wet areas outside the
stock fence.  Watercress appeals because it grows in cool weather and we have
a serious shortage of cool weather forage crops in the mix that has survived
15 years of abusive pasture mismanagement before we got the place.  There is a
short aquatic grass that seems palatable to the steer, but it grows slowly.
We have higher areas (and some ares now under water--this is supposed to be
the dry season) interplanted with winter rye (grain, not grass) which does
very well indeed in cool weather and will improve the tilth of the soil,
adding much organic matter in the root mass.  Yes, I know that people eat rye.
Buckweat would be another good crop for us because of its rapid biomass
accumulation, but try to get the local feed stores to order it.  They spend
hours trying to tell us we want something we don't want instead of just
writing down the order.  This is the first time I've experienced people not
believing I know what I want.  Of course buckwheat would be a once over
browse.  I'd probably let it go past prime so that it was forming seeds and
let the chickens work it instead of the steer.  Yes I know that buckwheat
seeds and leaves are good to eat.  

Let's assume that this is a permaculture list and people know that we have
zone 1 and 2 food production well under development and that issues about work
in the outer zones do not mean that we are ignoring production, and
utilization thereof, in the inner zones.  Particularly when that was stated in
the post!

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 1982),
Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  One is now underway.  Next Live program:  Paraguay,
8/10-22/98. Internships available. Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway,
P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA  [email-masked]  

We don't have time to rush.

A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html