The Potato Lady of Maine – The Maine Potato Lady, located in the foothills of Central Maine, has been in business for over 25 years. Their potato seeds are sold in accordance with the seed certification requirements of Maine. During the growing season, each lot is inspected three times for specific pests and diseases.
How are seed potatoes and regular potatoes different?
What is a potato seed? – We propagate potatoes vegetatively or asexually, with the exception of plant breeders; potatoes of the same variety are genetically identical to their parents. Therefore, the’seed’ you’ll find for growing potatoes resembles a potato.
- There are, however, significant distinctions between seed potatoes and supermarket potatoes.
- First, the majority of potatoes in grocery stores have been treated with a sprout-inhibitor to prevent the development of eyes during storage and shelf life.
- Never treat seed potatoes with sprout inhibitors.
- This alone can determine the success or failure of potato cultivation.
Second, you should only purchase certified disease-free seed potatoes. Before receiving a government-issued “disease-free” certification, potatoes intended for sale as seed are tested for a panel of diseases. Positive seed lots are not certified and are therefore not sold.
White potatoes, red potatoes, and potatoes with yellow flesh or red skin are identical to potatoes with any other color exterior or interior. Only by purchasing and planting certified seed potatoes can a “clean” crop be guaranteed. Certified seed potatoes are guaranteed to be disease-free and have not been treated with the common anti-sprouting chemicals found in supermarket potatoes.
How many potatoes can a single potato seed produce?
More! (Published 1997) CUTTINGS
Send a friend an article. As a subscriber, you receive ten gift items each month. Anyone can read your shared content. Donate this article Donate this article Donate this article
See the article in its original context in Section 1, Page 42 of the April 20, 1997 issue. TimesMachine is an exclusive perk for digital and home delivery subscribers. Being of Irish descent and a staunch traditionalist, a neighbor in south-central Pennsylvania insists on planting potatoes on St.
- Patrick’s Day.
- This typically means that he will return to the potato patch within a couple of weeks to protect the sprouting potatoes from late freezes with a thick layer of straw mulch.
- Apparently, Ireland has a unique climate.
- Due to their reputation for resilience, most gardeners plant potatoes far too early.
It is important to remember that they belong to the same family as tomatoes and eggplants. The foliage of potatoes is killed by a hard frost, so plant no sooner than two weeks before the last frost is expected. Obviously, some gardeners do not plant potatoes because they believe they are space-hungry vegetables that do not thrive in small gardens.
- True, the average garden will not produce enough potatoes to store for the winter, but few gardeners have root cellars.
- A single plant can yield at least three or four pounds of potatoes, and a single seed potato can produce four or five plants.
- If you plant the seed pieces approximately one foot apart in a row and leave two feet of space on either side of the row, you will need approximately 25 square feet of garden space to produce approximately 20 pounds of potatoes.
This is inferior to, say, green beans or tomatoes, but superior to sweet corn. And the benefits can be substantial. For example, you could consume authentic new potatoes. Potatoes harvested while the plant is still alive and green are known as new potatoes.
They are sweet because the sugars in the potatoes have not yet converted to starch. Typically, what supermarkets sell as new potatoes are small, mature, and typically red potatoes. When the potato vine has died, mature potatoes are dug up. At this point, the skin has hardened and the flesh has become starchy, resulting in improved storage qualities but not a particularly pleasant eating experience.
If you grow your own potatoes, you can enjoy varieties that are unavailable in grocery stores, such as Swedish Peanut (a long, thin, fingerling variety with golden flesh) and Cranberry Red. (The inside is pink.) Both are offered by Wood Prairie Farm (49 Kinney Road, Bridgewater, Me.04735; 800-829-9765; free catalogue).
In addition, Ronniger’s Seed Potatoes (P.O. Box 1838, Orting, Washington 98360) offers dozens of varieties, including the Irish favorite Kerr’s Pink and the delightful Anna Cheeka’s Ozette fingerlings. While waiting for the season to settle sufficiently to plant potatoes, you can get a head start by sprouting the seed potatoes.
Keep them at room temperature and in the shade until small white sprouts emerge from the eyes. Depending on how the potatoes were stored, this could take anywhere from a few days to a week or more. Then, expose them to light so the sprouts can produce chlorophyll and “green up.” Pre-sprouting the potatoes increases yield and decreases the likelihood of seed potatoes rotting in the soil if the weather turns cold and wet after planting.
Cut the potatoes into pieces the size of a hen’s egg or larger, with at least two sprouts or eyes per piece, when the sprouts are about half an inch long. Some potatoes have few eyes, resulting in larger pieces. There should be approximately four pieces per average-sized seed potato. Fingerling potatoes have numerous eyes and are capable of producing up to six seed pieces.
Make a 2- to 3-inch-deep trench with loose soil on either side in the garden, and space the seed pieces 8 to 16 inches apart. Closer spacing will result in smaller potatoes, which is not a disadvantage if you intend to harvest early for new potatoes to steam whole.
- If you don’t want an abundance of potatoes the size of peanuts, you should give fingerlings a larger distance between their rows.
- The seed pieces should be covered with no more than two inches of soil.
- Some gardening manuals recommend planting deeply, but shallower planting will result in quicker emergence.
When the potato plants reach a height of approximately six inches, hill them by drawing soil up around the plants so that only the top leaves are visible. This is a crucial step if you desire a large quantity of potatoes. Potatoes only produce tubers on the underground portion of the stem above the seed.
The stem of the potato plant will be longer and you will harvest more potatoes if you pile more soil around it. The potato plant can be hilled a second or even third time as it grows. Even if you’re cultivating potatoes in a container, the method works flawlessly. I once grew a respectable harvest in a whisky half-barrel by planting potatoes when the barrel was half-filled with soil and then adding additional layers of soil until it was full.
Four seed pieces produced almost thirty pounds of potatoes. As long as it is dense enough to prevent light from reaching the developing tubers, straw can be used in place of soil as a mulch around a growing plant. The potato’s skin will turn green as a result of the toxic alkaloid solanine being produced by sunlight.
If a potato has a green skin, remove it before eating it.) Mice and squirrels will sometimes find your potatoes before you do if they dig through the mulch to get to them. When the plant begins to bloom, new potatoes can be harvested. If you don’t want to sacrifice the entire plant, use a trowel or your fingers to carefully dig into the hillside and feel for potatoes.
The plant will not object if you steal a few. After flowering, the vine dies, indicating that the potatoes have reached maturity. Then, remove the entire plant and allow the potatoes to dry on the ground or in a warm, shady area. This will aid in the skin’s hardening, allowing the tubers to be stored.
- Do you not feel a little bit Irish now?
- DURING THIS WEEK
- Cut, plant, prune, and embrace a tree
- Take geranium and begonia cuttings to decorate the porch this summer.
Plant new perennials with consideration for their space, light, and water requirements. There is a temptation to crowd too many plants together. Keep an eye out for plant sales at local botanical gardens and plant societies; they frequently offer interesting specimens at reasonable prices.
When tulips, daffodils, and other bulbs have finished flowering, remove the spent flower to prevent the bulb from expending energy on producing a seed pod. But do not prune any leaves. They generate solar energy to nourish the bulb for next year’s blooms. Friday is Arbor Day; plant a tree, but don’t forget to care for it.
Choose the appropriate tree for the location (sun, shade, dry or moist) and carefully dig a wide, deep hole. During dry months, the plant should be well-watered, mulched, and observed.
- Two tips from the Dover, Delaware, Sprig and Twig Garden Club:
- Place a few garlic cloves in the soil around your rose bushes to prevent mildew, black spot, and aphids.
- Crushed, dried eggshells should be sprinkled around plants to repel slugs and snails.
Who can say? They may succeed. ANNE RAVER: Potato, Potato, Potato. More! (Printed in 1997)
Do seed potatoes return annually?
The Short Answer – The gardener’s objective during harvest is to unearth every potato. It is simple to forget a few potatoes, as the tubers will survive the winter in the soil. If you live in a climate where the soil freezes deeply, these potatoes will freeze and become mush if you forget about them.
What differentiates seed potatoes from store-bought potatoes?
Are Store-Bought Potatoes Suitable for Planting – Growing store-bought potatoes that have sprouted can result in a delicious and safe crop of potatoes. However, there is one caveat to growing store-bought potatoes. In contrast to certified disease-free potatoes, supermarket potatoes may contain pathogens such as or.
White potatoes, red potatoes, and potatoes with yellow flesh or red skin are identical to potatoes with any other color exterior or interior. Only by purchasing and planting certified seed potatoes can a “clean” crop be guaranteed. Certified seed potatoes are guaranteed to be disease-free and have not been treated with the common anti-sprouting chemicals found in supermarket potatoes.
