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Sweet rewards
Gainesville gardener reaps unintended benefits
1123Potatoes1
Gainesville resident Bobbett Holloway shows off more than 60 pounds of sweet potatoes from five ornamental sweet potato plants in her yard.
If you plant a patch of potatoes, how many pecks of potatoes will you end up picking?
 
For Gainesville resident Bobbett Holloway, about 60 pounds worth.
 
It all started this past spring, when Holloway purchased some ornamental sweet potato plants from Full Bloom Nursery in Clermont.
 
In the past she has planted sweet potato vines for some interesting color in her garden and, she said, the lime green foliage of the “Marguerite” variety make a nice addition to her garden here.
 
“I had them in last year and they did real well, but I just pulled up the foliage,” she said. “Then I remembered in Dallas I had planted regular sweet potatoes years ago, and I was surprised when I pulled them up — I had 100 pounds.”
 
So this year, when the weather changed and the plants’ leaves turned brown, Holloway decided to dig a little further when pulling up the dead plants.
 
“Sure enough, 63 pounds,” she said of the ornamental potatoes, which grew in a variety of shapes and are white under their purple skin.
 
“So I got on the Internet to make sure they’re edible,” Holloway said, adding that she has cooked them a few times and, while they are not quite as sweet as the store-bought variety, they are still tasty.
 
Holloway, who is also a master gardener, added that caring for the plants was easy. She just needed to keep an eye out for snails and ants, which like the sweet sap the plant produces. But otherwise, the ornamental sweet potato vines, available in different varieties, are a sun-loving ground cover that does well both in a pot and in the ground.
 
And the fall harvest was not only unexpected but easy.
 
“Why not grow your own potatoes without any effort?” she said.