I grow about 50 sweetpotato vines each year in my garden. I am in a pretty cold area. We put in our vines in June and they are ready to dig around October/Nov. If the frost hits them it just kills the top leaves and the lowers usually are ok. The potato itself seems to be fine underground even after the plant itself is killed off. My big problem is where to plant them the first few years we planted them in a heavy soil end of our garden and digging in clay/loam in fall in our area is a mucky mess but we got tons of potatos. We moved them to a more sandy loam area of the garden and that is easier. We dedicate one whole section to the sweet potato and we have grown both types bush and vine. the bush type is easier to contain but the vine type are tastier. We just keep curling the vines back into its area to keep it from overtaking everything else. Just give them plenty of room to spread out. I dont think you should have much problem just remember to follow all those roots to the end when you dig and dig carefully cause they are fragle and break easy. If they break just use those first but they are still fine and seal off themseves. You can still store them for a while. Also I have found that for every plant you get a 4 foot diamiter dig hole and it may be quite deep. They dont bunch up under the plant like a regular potato they tend to go all over and sometimes the root takes you to china before you find the potato. I have found several when rototilling the garden after we think we have it cleared. As far as work - just plant them and water them and turn the vines back out of the rest of the garden. They are easy and not much up here bothers them other than woodchucks love the leaves so you may have to fence around them like we did to save them from being just little stalks without any greenery. If you order plants from a catalog they will look really sickly when you get them but just put them in a jar of water overnight and they perk right back up. They are small but they really take on quick and they arrive at your door really late. We usually get ours around Early to mid-june.

Definately try digging the roots too! It's fun to find the potatoes and see how many you get ! I've never had luck with the cuttings over winter, they seem to just hate the cool windowsills around here and end up dying a slow death. Even the roots seem to like warmer drier storage conditions than other root type things, definately a hot weather plant.

I'm in Texas, so digging up isn't required, and I've always whacked the banana trees off at the ground, they always come back the next year, and I had one in Dallas that reached roof height and produced bananas in its 4th year (the growing season wasn't long enough for them to ripen, but watching the process was awesome and I kept the little brown clumps of fibrous would-be nanas for decoration!). Now I'm in central Texas and still leave them in the ground, but it seems this slows them down the next year...a friend said he just whacks the stalk off at shoulder level, wraps the entire stalk in a thick layer of newspaper tied at increments with garden twine, then covers only the stump's TOP with newspaper AND plastic (grocery store bags tied over the top should do) to prevent water from getting into the cut top and rotting the trunk. He also leaves about 2-inches of leaf stem when he wacks them off the trunk rather than shaving them close to the trunk (not sure why).. I'll probably do this and move the pups at the same time - early Nov before the first frost here. Let me know if anyone tries this and the result!

There is really no need to overwinter potato slips. This is the way 'old-timers' did it. In fact, my husband's brother-in-law still does his this way unto the present time. Simply place a couple of sweet potatoes in a jar of water (set in a sunny window) up to near the top of the tuber. When the vines have grown to about 4-6 inches long, break them off right at the tuber and plant them deep in the furrow provided for them. Water in well. Starting the slips in this manner gives a very smooth slick potato at harvest time. It was the preferred method for this reason.