potatoes from tubers that came from seed

remember these little guys i planted thirty-two days ago? last year's potato fruits yielded viable seed which i grew under the lights last winter and these tubers were the product of those plants...i put them in a container on the twentieth of june and as of today three are officially up and running...so...from seed to plant to tuber to plant...nothing new in the plant world no doubt and probably the most elementary of botany exercises..but it's new to me and that's what it's about...i'll be telling the usda too.

july first is andean tuber day...

...at least in my back yard...both mashua plants are doing well...but the one in the top photo seems much happier....same goes for the yacon plant in the second photo...it sustained far less hail damage last month..the other is doing well but still recovering...early blue plants are flowering across the yard ( third photo ) while the potato seedlings from last weekend's transplant in the fourth photo are adapting to new environments...the bottom photo tells me there are more transplants in the offing...time will have to be made.

potato seedling transplant

three of the potato seedlings out on the deck have deployed true leaves so it was time to transplant them to peat pots until they are big enough to put in their own containers...i prepared some compost mixed with vermiculite to keep it form compacting and, as delicately as my fat, clumsy fingers would allow, i used tweezers to extract the seedlings with ( hopefully ) their entire root system intact...i put each one in its own peat pot and put them out with their larger brethren to bask in the late june sun and grow...we will be looking in on their progress...if their season is as long as the ones i grew in the basement ( 167 days )they will be finishing their season under the lights downstairs...we'll see.

outback

there's progress out back as well...the potato seedlings are doing well...seven are up ( although i have some question about the viability of one of them...we'll see )...they will be transplanted to larger container soon enough...the mashua out there ( second photo ) has been left alone ( so far )and will, i hope, be producing both blooms and peppery tubers ( and i wonder how similar they are in flavor to nasturtium flowers...aim to find out )...the hail damaged yacon in the third photo is recovering well and there are five robust northern tepehuan teosinte plants caged in out there ( fourth photo )...the winter rye, for autumn cover crops...and spring wheat...because i like the way it looks...in the fifth photo are ripening as the alfalfa in the sixth continues to bloom...pole beans have grasp the pole in the seventh photo and the heirloom tomatoes in the last photo have begun to turn purple...so far...so good..still a ways to go...more later.

potatoes from seed

it's been rather a long day and i was about to pack it in when i had to run down to the basement...while i was down there i decided to look in on the potatoes from seed project i started on jaunary second ( 167 days ago ),,,the vines had been dying back for a few days and this evening they looked fairly well done ( top photo ) so i began popping root balls out of the peat pots and the results are in the rest of the photos...thirteen small tubers ranging in size from about three quarters of an inch in diameter to somewhere around and eighth of an inch...i will be planting these...even though i am not sure how viable the smallest are...to see what comes up...i planted some seed this past weekend to try to grow outdoor plants from seed..if they germinate these two projects seem to be made to meld together...more as it arises.

profusion of silks = tandem ears

things are a bit less murky in the plant room tonight...the profusion of potato vines that have come from the seed i germinated ( top photo ) continue to thrive ( there have been three casualties...the original fifteen are now twelve )...the plants are producing more and more stolons which i am continuing to "hill" in hopes of stimulating the setting of tubers...we'll see...when i turned the grow light on over the teosinte something that seemed odd became much clearer...the explosion of silks on the top ear was odd until it became obvious that there is more than one ear exiting the stem at the top leaf node...tandem ears = enough silks for two ears ( second and third photos )...there are multiple silks on the lower ear as well ( fourth photo ) so i wonder if there is another ear brewing there as well...with limited stem space on an unnaturally short teosinte plant ( grown in unnatural conditions indoors that is no surprise ) the plant seems to be trying to increase it chances of passing on its dna by producing multiple ears from leaf nodes...that happens outdoors as well so it may just be a function of this plant's genes rather than the environment ( can you tell i have been reading e.o. wilson )...whatever the cause i am more than pleased to see multiple ears on this plant..still waiting for the seeds outdoors to germinate...not much else to tell...gave the garlic in the back yard a good mulching with straw and compost today and soaked some eastern gamagrass seeds that arrived yesterday for a couple of hours in hydrogen peroxide to break dormancy and planted them in peat pots to hopefully germinate...with the campus gamagrass gone it is time to establish a new bunch in an environment i have far more control over and get back to charting the behavior of native plants relative to climate...garlic appeared two days earlier this year than last...is that significant? possibly...but only if the garlic continues to arrive earlier and earlier ...and it isn't native...local perennials are what i am after for that particular project...i'll take annuals like purslane and lamb's quarters too...but i'd rather look at perennials...more as this all moves along.

solanum

different seasons in different places...the top photo is of two big rainbow heirloom tomatoes up form seed my friend fern sent along...i planted eight altogether...hoping for more soon...this is an all solanum posy as the second photo is of the jungle of vines that the potatoes from seed have become...is this their outdoor appearance as well or is it the environment? i plant to germinate some and plant them outdoors as soon as the weather breaks ( it snowed here yesterday ) ...so we will find out...the red pontiac in the third photo is chitting away and it too needs the weather to break soon so it can get grounded outside...finally, the potted ollalas in the bottom photo are reaching the end of their season...a hopeful harvest of seed potatoes soon ...mpor eon that in a few days.

solanum stolons

friday i was rambling on about the similarities and dissimilarities between the potato plants downstairs that were grown from tubers and those grown from seed...same plant of different varieties they are closely related enough that the morphological differences should be fairly superficial and today i noticed another similarity...the first and third photos are plants that were grown from tubers and the second and forth photos are of the stolons they are producing...those stolons mark them out as perennials...they also mark them out as indeterminate varieties which will continue to produce tubers as long as the stolons are covered or "hilled "...the sort of potato you want to grow in potato towers because as you cover the stolons to produce tubers the plant will develop more stolons above the soil surface that can, in turn, be covered with soil to produce more spuds...determinate potatoes, like determinate tomatoes, are bred to set tuber only to a standard height...they don't continuously produce stolons and were developed so commercial operations would not have to continuously "hill" the crop to prevent tubers from being exposed to sunlight and "greening"...i will be covering those stolons with soil just to see what happens...and i have an explanation for why some people's potato towers fail...determinate varieties of potatoes.

spuds from seeds and tubers...and a flower

top two potatoes from tubers. third photo potatoes from seed...morphologically similar and different at once...the plants from seed are far more vine-like while the leaves are dead ringers...last photo is the teosinte flower continuing emerging from its sheath...that still has the agriculturalist geeked.

spudland

from plants nearing the end of their season to seedlings to those in robust middle age the plant room is chock full of spuds...there will be more harvests in the next few weeks...and the government potatoes are due sometime at the end of the month or early next...who doesn't love an organic tuber smothered in butter? well...if you don't i just leaves more for me.