I hope this is a good sign because we’re super proud!
We probably have to give them more potassium now.
We’re very excited about trying to grow potatoes from seed, if anyone tried before do you have any advice? (It’s just for fun, I can imagine that it’s quicker to use seed potatoes)
After a quick Google search they are poisonous so if anyone else is blessed with potato berries, don’t eat them 🙂
by Specialist-Brain-919
7 Comments
If anyone is wondering we are in the Netherlands. We planted them on 2nd of April, last real frost was at the beginning of may but nights were still often below 5°C until very recently.
Congrats, OP! You have happy potatoes!
I accidentally grew a potato from seed towards the end of last season (we are in winter now). I threw the berries on my unused seed trays and forgot about it, discovered a tiny seedling after a week of rain. The plant was smaller/more delicate than one grown from a seed potato and did require more attention. On the upside it did produce a few baby potatoes I plan to use as seed potatoes next season. My berries were from a Blaue st Gauler but the potatoes from the offspring are red not purple so I assume the other parent was my flamenco potatoes.
For producing food it’s wildly inefficient, as an experiment it’s great fun.
Yay! Dont forget to update up if you have any luck! Potatoes are in the nightshade family so dont eat the berries!! Just incase ya thought about it lol.
I was taught to pluck the flowers to put more energy into the potato itself.
Potatoes are a tetroploid so they have 4 copies of every gene. When crossed it really becomes a genetic lottery, similar to apples, you don’t know what you will get (99%+ will likely be garbage but in theory if you keep replanting the seeds and inbreeding them with the same cultivar you could potentially develop a landrace. The most popular russet potato variety (Russet Burbank) was found accidentally by planting the seed from one of the berries by the renowned Luther Burbank. For eating, however, this will never be better/more productive than planting tubers. The seeds are very tiny so it would be best to start them in seed trays. Good luck, it sounds fun!
Potato berries are toxic so don’t eat them.