Well, I don't know for sure, but I wanted to pass along something I heard just this morning.

I was at a nursery, and was admiring a huge pot planting which contained sweet potato vine. This pot was in the shade, and I didn't realize that you could grow SPV in the shade successfully. The nuserywoman (whom I know to be quite knowledgable) was nearby, so I asked her about it. She said it grows fairly well in the shade, not as vigorously as in the sun, but fairly well - "but you have to watch out for slugs. You can already see the damage there". Sure enough, the leaves had many little round holes in them, which I never would have recognized as slug damage. They looked very round and neat, whereas I thought slug damage was more irregular and ragged.

So anyway, for what it's worth, thought I'd pass it along. Good luck!

:)
Dee

I agree, slugs. Mine were eaten almost completely away last summer before I found out it was slugs.

My sweet potato vines had tons of holes in them... I flipped one over and saw the coolest looking gold metallic bug, the size of a ladybug. Come to find out, it's a tortoise beetle, and they loooooooove sweet potato vines :)

I sprinked diatomaceous earth on my vines, and no more damange.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tortoise Beetle Info