Hey everyone,
I’m hoping to get some advice from folks with more experience growing potatoes from true seed (TPS). I’m in zone 6b and had hoped to do a spring planting, but I didn’t get my seeds in time. I ended up starting them indoors in early June instead.
Obviously, this isn’t ideal timing, but I’d still like to see what I can get out of this season. Has anyone here had success planting TPS seedlings out for a fall harvest? Any tips for timing, care, or what to expect yield-wise going into cooler weather?
I’m mostly doing this for the experience and to get some selections to work with for next year, but it’d be nice to get something decent to harvest too.
I’m only in my third year working with TPS. What I’ve experienced, so far, is all over the map. I’ve gotten fantastic tubers each season but, honestly, I attribute this more to my massively fertile living compost bed built on kitchen scraps and rabbit and chicken bedding. This season? I’ve had incredibly green aerial leafage. Dense and very healthy looking. Yet, in this season in particular I’ve had absurdly few flowers. I have about a 20 foot by 3.5 foot bed entirely planted with last season’s tuber selections - ie clones. And, then I have about a 12-15’ x 3.5’ bed planted out with this year’s TPS from GTS and some leftover TPS seed from Ken Asmus’s Perpetual Diversity seeds. Both beds have maybe given out 4-5 flower clusters so far. The addendum here is this season, like any other, has had its own oddities. Everything appears pushed forward a month. Maybe I’ll get more flowers over the next several weeks? I’m not really counting on it. I have yet to find a single potato berry (aerial) on any TPS plant or tuber I’ve grown. SO, I keep planting tubers and relying on others for the seeds. I would love if that changed.
