Kitchen Garden Forum

One of my Maris Piper potato plants has developed seedballs!!!!! I can't quite believe it as I've never, ever had them develop before

So now I need help please as to when I should pick them?

How I should harvest the seeds - that is to either wait for the seed ball to dry and then take the seeds or open the ball and take the seeds out and let them dry in the kitchen?

When is the best time to sow them and when can they be planted out?

I believe that it will be 2 seasons (so Octoberish 2014) before I get a crop off them but I am so excited about the prospect of growing potatoes from 'true seed' rather than 'seed potatoes' (I need a jumping up and down hyper excited smilie for here)

Thanks
VPM
x

P.S. They are currently the size of hazelnuts, if that helps with advice

Don't assume they'll breed true.

I won't but I'd love to grow them and see what I get

VPM
x

I think it has been discussed before, but searching for potato & seed will get all the references to seed potatoes.

The best thing you can do with tattie apples as we call them is use them as catapult ammunition. Well, that's what we did fifty-odd years ago

vpm, your enthusiasm is great don't let them dampen it.
While the seed might not breed true it's also possible you could get an interesting cross.

Some potato varieties produce tatty apples, seed balls, call them what you will (fruits, as they are known in the trade) every year. Desiree is one. They can be a nuisance if left to mature and rot in the ground or put on the compost heap, resulting in volunteer seedlings. Potatoes do not come true from seed. It can be fun raising seedlings, though. After the first year small tubers are formed, sufficient to get an idea of how and what they might progress into if they are grown on. I once raised some seedlings from a heritage variety, Shetland Black, as the seed parent and the resulting seedlings produced tubers which were variously red, yellow, white and purple skinned. None of them proved to be any good, and by the second year had accumulated viruses in any case, which is the fate of most potatoes unless particular precautions are taken to keep them especially sanitised.
The fruits, I find, have a particularly tempting smell to them when they are ripe, rather like melon. I did taste one once, only the once.