Getting sweet potatoes to produce healthy vines above ground seems to be *very* easy. Getting the potatoes themselves to grow large requires a little more effort (e.g. very loose soil). But even if you get both of these right, you might still end up having a helluva time trying to get all of them out of the ground. It's no problem if you don't mind having more vines grow next year (that can be a huge benefit). But I planted our sweet potato garden in the middle of a circular driveway, which we want to redo. So I'm trying to eradicate the potatoes and do something else with the space. This is proving way harder than I imagined.