Kitchen Garden Forum

Happy New year to all
So happy not just to have counch grass and mud as we had at this time last year but to be starting my second year knowing not by any means much but soooo much more.
Last year we grew charlotte and pink for apples, my old man is convinced that in the seeds must be the best ever potato. But how to bring the seed to fruition? I have a new propagator if that would help, just 5 lonely jiffy sevens with 2 aubergines seeds a piece in at the moment!
Regards
Penny

Dear Penny, i do hope you have the best of growing years this year.
I too grow Charlotte potatoes, and very nice they are as well.

i never grew pink fir apple but Charlotte i have .every year i pick the seed potatoes from last years crop i use potatoes about 30mm to 45mm in size you will see the eyes on one end of the potato this is called the rose end i place them in egg trays that i get from our local hotel each tray holds about 24 seed potatoes with the rose end up .then i put them in a frost free window ,about 4-6 later the stalks are about 25mm long.they must be handled gently or else it all a waste of time chitting them. we used to plant 400kg of potatoes each year i was the eldest of nine so they were easily eaten.we used to only chit early potatoes .we never chitt the main crop seed.then every 3-4 years we would buy in new seed always organic .some of the non organic seed are treated with chemicals .
if you plant potatoes that are too big there will be a lot of eyes on the seed so you will end up with a large crop of small potatoes,i have seen old fellas cut the seed in half and they might rub out some of the eyes.a seed potato with 4 eyes will produce larger potatoes than a seed with 7 eyes.i hope this helps
and please correct me if i have something wrong
this year i have planted orla seed in the Polly tunnel, yes its early but we rarely get frost where i live (gulf stream) it has worked for the last 7 years . in march i will sow some orla ,sentae and one of the sarpo variety only a few kg of each
regards nemo

I too, have wondered if anyone has had success growing potatoes from seed rather than seed potatoes ?