Our life living off the land in our log cabin, breathing fresh mountain air, and getting back to basics.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

We Have True Potato Fruit in our Garden!

We are fortunate that our purple (or blue) potatoes have produced both beautiful flowers and fruit (an unusual occurrence, as we understand)The fruit produces true potato seeds, a way to cultivate original potatoes!

The flowers are lovely...
...and the fruit is most intriguing...




...looks like little green tomatoes!




You have to wait until the potato greens dry up and wilt, and subsequently the fruit will wilt.  Then you pick the fruit, let it try completely, and wash it with hot water to remove the gel that protects the seeds. Then dry the seeds.  When planted the next season, you can not expect a great yield.  The seeds are from the original potato, which may not reflect anything similar to the potato sprouts you planted, and will take time to cultivate.  But the second year, when you plant those potato sprouts (from the spud, not the seed), you will have a great fresh crop of potato.

We are very excited that we have this potato fruit in our garden, and will keep you in the loop of our true potato seed harvesting and planting progress!

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise     

7 comments:

NCmountainwoman said...

Amazing! I have never in my life heard of potato fruit. A quick search tells me that you have something rare indeed. Wow!

Lise said...

I know! We are really excited to have them in our very first garden!

Tom Wagner said...

I love to see posts as yours! Potato berries may seem unusual or rare to most people but I spent most of my life breeding potatoes to the point where the special varieties of mine will bloom for five months and have hundreds of berries per plant.
Any questions...just Google tatermater and proboards and you will find my forum devoted mostly to my potato breeding experience of 59 years and no end in sight.
Tom Wagner

Lise said...

Awesome Tom, I am really glad to make your acquaintance:) I've visited your blog, and will keep an eye on what you have going on! I am sure we can learn many a thing from you about taters and maters:)

juhli said...

I just spotted the fruit on our blue potatoes too. Very exciting... first time planting blue potatoes, first time getting potatoe fruit/seeds. We life in southern BC Canada.

juhli said...

Juhli B. Farrell
juhlionline@yahoo.ca

Lise said...

Exciting Juhli, I recently planted my seeds and they are growing (in starter pots), I'm looking forward to planting those! Good luck with yours.