Allotments 4 All

Glad your seeds are doing their thing beautifully for you. 

The thing with tps is that in the first year they are not quite the finished product and you don't want to carry on with all of your new types. 

You can expect to get mini tubers, rather than full sized tubers.  But the tuber size does vary, usually between pea and large plum sized.   

Another consideration is yield.  You many have a plant with a single mini tuber and the next may have twenty.  A clear choice which variety to carry on with, all other things being equal.  There are also differences in plant size vs tuber production.  You can have a bonny, large plant with disappointing yield below and equally the opposite.    Blight resistance also varies, make notes to know which are the most resistant plants. 

And you also want to taste test them.  Occasionally you will find a tuber that tastes 'lemony'.  Discard all tubers from that plant and don't carry on with them.  Because that lemony tang means that there is too much of the substance in this particular strain, which makes potatoes very slightly poisonous.  I have forgotten the name. 

What I would stress is that you want to be able to choose between your new potato varieties.  They aren't all equal.  And it is much easier to tell them apart, if you plant them well separated, so you know at harvest time whether that one single mini tuber was all there was, or that the twenty tubers did indeed all come from the same plant. 

Red vs yellowish stems.  You may well have red and yellow or whitish potatoes resulting.  But no guarantees of that fact.  Just make notes which plant (I number my plants for convenience) had red stems.

By the way (and this is way early) when you come to taste your mini tubers, one of each plant, I find it easiest to sit them in in a circle in one of my steamer trays and the first to taste has a toothpick in it, then the others get tasted going clockwise.  Quick notes at the time, as they will all be different.  Steamed gives excellent results and you know which one was which because you start with the toothpick marked potato which is number 1.  Others do it a similar way, but instead of steaming they microwave their mini tubers.  I use the toothpick method, but you can equally put each potato in a small biscuit cutter and have several biscuit cutters in the steamer tray, each with a different variety potato inside. 

I am sure you know that in principle each plant from true seeds is a ready new variety.  Apart from producing full size tubers only in the second year, there is no further change in characteristics or flavour.  What you see is the ready new variety.  Growing from tps is a lot of fun and the new varieties will be virus free.  You will be able to propagate from them for a number of years to come.  With bought seed potatoes you will see deterioration due to virus much quicker. 

We often buy Narcissus bulbs in pots when the stores sell them off after flowering. They do better planted out in the garden now and given a liquid feed. Don't cut off the leaves as they are needed to feed the bulbs for next time.

Just a quick question please.
I have a pot that is bursting with narcissus bulbs.
They were kept in a hot old peoples home until they finished flowering.
I've got them at home now. Wondering, if to store them indoors until autumn for planting outside or plant them outside now?
Sorry for many years of absence on here. My life has been ridiculous!

They look amazingly healthy and perky after surviving -13. Great to know.

I’ve planted out both Rossia and Red Evolution from an early February sowing. Looking promising. Pictures later perhaps.

We use scaffolding net over most of the crops. We buy off ebay