Although the soil's temperature in my central Minnesota zone 3 garden indicates that outdoor planting must wait a few weeks yet, I placed my seed potato order in mid-February. A few years ago, inspired by a purple sweet potato included in my weekly produce box and the pot of "Leek Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup" that I prepared with them, I decided that I wanted to plant sweet potatoes... purple ones.
Purple sweet potatoes are grown in North Carolina. Ya gotta watch this YouTube video Stokes Purple Sweet Potato that tells how it all began and how the farmer got neighbors involved and saved their farms. He started the business after he retired. Heartwarming story on several levels. I wrote to him so he would know that his story was inspiring and I asked him if sweet potatoes would grow in Minnesota and did he sell seed potatoes to grow them. He wrote back to say that our growing season is too short. But, each year, I make sure to plant purple potatoes... ones with purple skin and purple flesh. No, they're not sweet potatoes, but I'm O.K. with that.