Are you going to purchase some of the seed? Sounds very interesting, and i like the sound of a few of his varieties. This could be a fun project for this growing season.

He didn't say when to plant them? I plant my seed potatoes way before the last frost. If we have a heavy frost after they come up they will die back but come up again. Will frost completely kill them?

I read a all of the articles and decided to buy some of his fiesta gold seed and the negro blue. I also picked up some of the blue tomatoes. From what I've read, it sounds like after 8 weeks the plants will have grown stolons and at this time they need to be transplanted right away. However, all of the people who commented on planting this way say the potatoes are absolutely incredible. As far as planting goes, all of the articles suggested starting in peat cups in February/March and plant outside 2 weeks after danger of frost has passed. They also advised planting several seeds per cell (if you use a cell pack) because not all seeds will germinate or germinate at the same time.

Interesting stuff! I read this thread and went to the link because I had just been reading another blog of a lady who grew some TPS. Here's the link if anyone wants to read more. Ithink she links to yet another site with info on the subject.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Exreme Gardener: True Potato Seed

Thanks Pitcom and sunnibel! I can plant them at the same time as my tomatoes then! Couldn't resist, so I bought the Fiesta Gold and Juanita.

I tried growing some one year from seed that I had on some Pontiac reds. I didn't think that they would transplant well since most root crops don't. So I didn't plant them until the soil had warmed, direct seeded in the garden. They had very small tubers and dried out over the winter while in storage.

I bought some too.

I have grown from TPS before, it is fussy. Hopefully these seeds are strains that are more vigorous from tps, more like tomatoes are.

Hey pnbrown, what variety did you get? I have read a lot of comments about people having great success using the seed from the guy mentioned in this article, Tom.

I got six kinds, couple of diploids, one or two of the late kinds, the red with white flesh and a red with yellow flesh.

Will start a bunch in florida next month.

Ok, so how is everybody's seedlings doing? I planted 72 of the potato seeds and had great germination results. Some of my plants are now about 2 inches tall with 8-10 leaves. I have been fertilizing once a week with some diluted fish emulsion/seaweed blend from neptunes harvest. So far so good i suppose. I plant to let these grow for about 4-6 more weeks indoors and set them out around the last frost date in my area.

Hmmm... I had always heard that while you could grow potatoes from true seed, the potatoes you did get would be fairly small and stunted, seed potatoes basically. That you'd then plant those to get the really good producing plants.

Looking forwards to seeing how yours does.

I haven't planted mine yet, I have to go to a 5 day conference in two weeks and I can't get a tater sitter!

I'm not sure that what I have growing is potatoes. I planted the seed in flats, and something is coming up but the leaves don't look like potato leaves! But they are still tiny.
I left them outside under the carport since the temps have been so high. Something might have blown in to the flats.

I would take a picture but my camera is broke. I'll borrow one tomorrow.

If you really want potato plants, put the peelings in the compost pile. I just recovered about 10 plants this morning and was planting them.

It might not be the season exactly, but since a root crop, it won't damage the fruit, just the leaves.

Sorry, I never got to borrow a camera and I forgot about this thread. I bought a new camera and my wife has it, she's visiting her cousin in Washington.

They developed potato leaves. I transplanted them about 2 weeks later. A lot of them died from a very late frost. The ones that survived are growing like weeds.

The Juanita plants have very red stems, the Fiesta Gold looks normal.

I haven't scratched around to check for any little taters yet, they haven't bloomed so I don't want to stunt them.

I purchased a number of packets of seed and have found that some will germinate and grow easily, while others seem determined not to germinate at all. One variety germinated great for me in January. But I accidentally killed the seedlings. When I started some more they refused (to date) to germinate. I don't know just exactly why this is. I'm quite excited about the potential of growing from true potato seed (TPS) and saving my own seed. But this does have me feeling like quite the novice!

I did get seeds from Huagalina and Chaposa to grow and they are doing very well, out in the garden. Here are a couple of pictures:

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Huagalina derived seedlings May 9, 2012

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Huagalina derived potato plants June 21, 2012

I have learned that once they seedlings develop their first set of true leaves, no matter how small, I need to start with weekly fertilizing until I put them out into the garden. Otherwise, with the soil medium I'm using, they simply languish and die.

Here's a link to Tom's site.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: New World Seeds & Tubers

I lost most of my plants in the freak freeze we had in the spring. However, the ones that made it have grown vigorously. The one thing i learned with these plants are, as seedlings they need a large growing space. The 72 and 50 cell trays do not cut it once they get a few set of leaves. When they are transplanted, they need to be put into at least a 3" x 3" pot. All of the ones i put in larger pots grew 10x faster and bigger.