Potato Plants, Grown from Seeds or Planted Early from Saved Tubers. 4.25.2021

In about February, I planted sprouted potato tubers that I had stored in the garage.  These were mostly very small tubers, which is why they didn't get eaten.  They were mixed varieties, mostly a yellow flesh, a russet, and I'm not sure.  There were some frosts after that, and I did protect them by covering with a tarp, when that happened.

 

 

The plants are various sizes.  A couple did not grow, but most did.  Some are quite vigorous.  One feature of planting in trenches, is that moles sometimes dig across the trench wall, burying growing potato plants.  I don't recall seeing that before.  As they grow above the sides of the trenches, I'll fill the soil back into the trench.  That way, voles don't get at the growing potatoes, and they don't need much if any watering, and I don't have to haul soil in to hill them up.

Since I planted some more potatoes last week, which have not yet emerged, it will be interesting to see if these are earlier or larger, compared to potatoes that I planted much later.

 

Here are the Clancy "True Potato Seed" potato plants that I planted in trenches a few weeks ago.  There were also a couple of frosts, which I treated as with the other potatoes.  Also, a few buried by moles, but not many.  I uncovered a couple.  These still have the fencing in place, that I used so the tarp would not smash the little plants.  These are actually almost as big as the potatoes from old tubers that I planted weeks earlier.  Bigger than some.  Some are smaller - there is a lot of variability.