This past week was an extremely busy week. Had classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Volunteered at Locust Grove on Thursday. Friday was devoted to shopping and preparing for my Saturday and Sunday cooking demonstrations at the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival, Rhinebeck, NY (I will be writing about it on Friday). As a result, not much garden chores got done.
To learn more about the festival visit: http://www.sheepandwool.com/cooking-demonstrations/index.asp
Wanted to dig in all the sweet potatoes but never got around to doing so. However the tips of the sweet potato vines looked tender and succulent (unusual for this time of year, must be due to the very rainy August, September and October, thus far) so I cut the tip (6″ – 8″) of each vine. Got a basket full. Took photos, weighed, 1¾ pounds, cleaned and cooked within an hour of harvest (cannot get any fresher). It was deeeelicious!!!!! May be I will get another harvest.
Sweet potato vine (top), tender tip and leaf (right). Tender tip (the section that snaps off easily) and leaf (including leaf stem) are edible parts.
Add 1 – 2 tablespoons oil, 2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced and ½ – 1 teaspoon kosher salt to preheated wok or frying pan, saute until garlic is lightly browned. Add prepped sweet potatoes leaves, saute until wilted. I like it at this stage, the leaf stem is crunchy. However, if you like the stem softer, continue sauteing until reached desired doneness. Shrinks a lot like spinach
This is a collection of 2 very small celeriac, Chinese celery, Chinese chives, 1 stalk broccoli, 2 small white sweet potato, carrots and a tiny red onion.
Visit Daphne’s Dandelions http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/ for more Harvest Mondays.
Garden to Wok 
Since sweet potatoes are not an easy crop to grow in my region… I am not knowledgeable about them at all and had no idea you could eat the greens too! Learn something new every day. 😀
Sounds like you had an incredibly busy but satisfying week.
What a wealth of fantastic information here, Norma! Our climate here on the coast of Maine is well suited to growing all sorts of Asian vegetables — we even have locally-grown ginger now — but there’s a lack of knowledge around cooking with them. Looks like I’ll be consulting your site frequently!
Hello Leduesorelle,
I am looking forward to your visits and will be very happy to answer all your cooking questions.
I just posted a pix at my blog, Diary of a Tomato, of some asian eggplant from the local farmers’ market. They were selling them as ornamental, any thoughts on how to cook with them? If you could, that would be great if you could leave a reply at my website for others to see. Thanks!
Hello leduesorelle,
I am not familiar with striped togo eggplant nor red ruffled eggplant. I imagine you could use the togo as you would any eggplant, the red ruffled I understand is quite bitter. If I find any info on either I will post on your site.
Thanks, Norma, any info you find would be great!
Norma, your pictures of those veggies make me hungry… they look lucious. I can vouch for how delicious the sweet potato greens are. I tried them for the first time a couple of years ago. My husband also loved them.
If I were in a short summer season area, I would consider growing sweet potatoes just for those delicious tips. Since I would not be concerned with energy going to the roots to produce potatoes, the tips could be cut often. The plants could be kept compact and produce many tips throughout the summer. Norma, what do you think?
Hello Connie,
Yep, the sweet potato greens are not only delicious they are highly nutritious also.
By the way, not all sweet potato vines are edible. I will be mentioning that in my Monday, October 24 post.