I harvested potato seeds last year and now they are growing. Last year, I noticed a potato plant with little green tomatoes, so I made the research about planting the seeds, and now here I am. When they grow a bit bigger, I will plant them out and grow them like normal potatoes. They take a bit longer than cloned potatoes, 5 months instead of 3, but afterwards I will have potatoes that are genetically adapted to our area.
Yup a fun project. I will keep this thread updated throughout the growing season. In the meantime i´ve still got 30 kgs of seed potatoes to plant. I am a potato fanatic.
Now that's what I call ingenious having potatoes, all home grown from seed, that will withstand all the weather conditions in your area. I do hope you will keep us informed how your new little plants are doing and, when they're ready, the crop of potatoes you get from them.
I must say that potatoes take a long time to germinate, about 3 to 4 weeks. The following link gives information on "true seed" potato planting http://www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm
Do you know what the variety is ? I use my small potatoes from the prior year for seed potatoes. I must say I have seen a small progression of size using my own potatoes. Getting more bakers than from bought seed potatoes.
I have no idea what variety of potato I have, but they were big and round, my seeds are from a potato that was growing in the compost patch. I think I can make up the name of the variety.
My potatoes are now ready to transplant. And here they are 22 planted out, If they do well, I will plant loads more next year, apparantly potato seeds are viable for 50 years. Lets hope they do well, I will keep you posted.
This is such a good thread, Odif. I shall be watching your progress reports on these seedlings. I am most interested to see if you get a crop from them this year. If they do not produce tubers this year, what is your plan B?
This is my plan B We had a very warm start to April and I planted these potatoes out, so at the end of April when it snowed and frosted, I hilled them up and completly buried the potato plants, so they are now in flower. The peas and broadbeans suffered a lot of frost damage, I probably should have hilled them up too.
