Hey everybody,
Lots of you ordered potato seeds from Going to Seed, they sold out! That means at least 150 of you are growing them.
Who’s planted seeds already? How was the germination rate? How are you feeling about it? Post your photos and comments in this thread throughout the growing season.
I seeded into soil blocks ( made from forest native soil + leaf mold + coco soil mix) on April 5th. I had to leave for a week the day after so I covered them with 1/4 inch + of soil, covered them with a tray, and left them in a tiny greenhouse with hot days and cold nights (40s). Very non-ideal, not recommending you do this, but if you also have non-ideal temps, it’s probably OK.
I see some seedlings after 10 days that probably aren’t weeds from the soil I used, surprisingly fast
I just planted mine yesterday in my basement. I won’t know the planting rate because i planted a bunch and didn’t count, but if it’s a lot then the rate is good :). I plan to grow any that sprout just in case.
I planted some in seed trays back in late February or early March, I can’t remember. I moved them inside during nights below 32 degrees. I transplanted them in a garden bed maybe 3 weeks ago. I believe only a few are looking good. I plan to hopefully have time to direct seed all of them this weekend.
By default, I will be selecting for heat tolerance if I have anything to select. Where I live, people plant potato roots in February. Late spring/early summer is usually too hot.
I have little experience with this but hope for the best and will report more findings later.
I have started some in six packs with a soil block mix. I plan on growing some in grow bags and some in ground. I have had problems with potatoes in the past two years. It is with voles and I think slugs damaging the tubers.
I planted mine April 4th. Based on cultivariable’s information I expected them to take a long time to come up, but the first ones (a clancy cross, not the going to seed ones) came up within 3-4 days. The going to seed ones were up by 7 days and are now getting their first leaves. Looks like maybe 75% germination or so.
(Looks at the weather.) Okay, nighttime temperatures at 35 degrees at the lowest over the next week, we haven’t had rain in two weeks, I haven’t seen any signs of frost in a week, and the average last frost date was a week ago. I think it’s safe to assume our hot dry season has started, and I can plant my potato seedlings outside now. Maybe lightly covered in a wee bit of mulch, just in case.
I missed out on the seed y’all had, so I used some of the weeks from Minnesota TPS in the serendipity seed swap box. It was a tetraploid mix. It’s a little late to start them here (started 3 days ago) but I did two trays (around 30 plants hopefully) and some are already up. It will be interesting as I have never grown potatoes and will likely need a lot of good information to help me
My GTS transplants definitely have slightly larger leaves than my other tps potato seedlings so far. Interested to see if that keeps up as either vigor or phenotype, or if it’s just an aberration right now.
Mine aren’t transplants or TPS, just bought a sack of tubers from the feed store. But we usually plant them in mid February and they’re ready to dig at the end of May. It gets too hot for potatoes here and the plants die, at least people say it’s the heat that kills the plants. But they all always die.
Germination in this tray was OK, in another one it was about 50% or less, I suppose part of what I’m selecting for are seeds that will germinate in non-ideal conditions of temp swings in an unheated, unvented greenhouse with 50F daily temp. swings.
Beautiful, mine are very small but the only seeds I had were the ones I have collected from my potatoes last year. We will see if they will make it to the flowering stage and whether they will manage to set tubers this season.
but we’ll get them in:
