Growing potatoes from real seed

Just a quickie to say that after my last post about planting sprouted potatoes, rabidlittlehippy sent a useful link via the comments box. Just in case some readers don’t read the comments, I’m relinking to it here.

It’s a really good piece of info about growing potatoes from real seed…..yes, potatoes flower like any other plant and set viable seed. I think I remember reading that the famous (American) variety Russet Burbank, was developed by planting real seed (by a Dr. Burbank, no less).

Last year, I was sent some seed of Pink Fir Apple potato by a member of the Ozgrow garden forum. I sowed it and it germinated and I had a dozen or so seedlings. Somehow I didn’t get time to pot them up and they grew for a while, being intermittently watered and unloved in the seedling tray, until finally giving up on the terrible gardener they’d been lumbered with, and dying. When I started to pull them out, I found a few small tubers. They’d tried so hard, I figured I owed them something and so I put the tubers into some pots and left them in the polyhouse.

A couple of days ago I noticed this (don’t blink, you’ll miss them):

Little green leaves. Those tiny, tiny tubers have started to sprout! (those orange globules aren’t tubers…that’s slow release fertiliser.)

I’ve promised them this time I will look after them.