Sweet potatoes for food and ground cover

I have lots of oak leaves, compost, and an area covered in white clover. How should I go about planting sweet potatoes.
* It appears I posted this in the wrong forum, apologies.

Last year when I grew sweet potatoes I just planted a single whole potato in my buried wood bed, and it produced about ten pounds of tubers, so I think it was a decent return on my investment. In the past I had planted slips, but they didn't produce nearly as well as the whole tuber. The problem with the "whole tuber" method is I'm limited to the variety offered by the grocery store.

If your soil isn't horrible, I'd just sheetmulch the clover with cardboard and lay mulch on top of that. Go easy on the compost.....sweet potatoes don't like an excess of nitrogen. Let the area settle for a while and then punch holes through and plant slips or tubers and watch it grow. Unless you're in the mountains you can probably plant up through June and still make a crop. And another hint.....eat the greens! A lot of folks don't know that. They make an excellent substitute for spinach lightly cooked. If space is limited pruning the vine tips for greens achieves two purposes, and you can take up to 20% of the foliage on a big sweet potato plant without damaging the root yield. But beware of deer. They know those greens are good to eat too!

Thank you guys for the advice. I'm planting some in raised beds, sheet mulched beds, and a traditional bed with chop and drop mulching. I'll post pics when I see how things go..

@scott what did you end up doing?. i am trying to figure a way to grow sweet potatoes as a perennial crop. Im just not sure how to incorporate them into my system. on a side not i see you are zone 7 NC what part of NC are you in? we are in pleasant garden, outside of greensboro.

Hello Drew. I fenced off a small area and dumped in leaves, grass clippings, and dirt. Made some holes and planted the slips. As you can see in the picture they are doing well but not as well as the ones in my hugelkultur, they took off like crazy. My guess is because they are competing for light with beets, black eyed peas, and squash. As these growing in the leaves grow I'll be adding mulch around the plants. I hope this helps. We live in Norwood about and hour east of Charlotte. I do love the triad area where you live and visit there as often as possible. Scott