Dreaming of Long Multi Coloured Fingerling potatoes

Well that's the hope!

This year I'm planning on growing some potato varieties (several I've bred, the others are bought in) that I hope, with a bit of cross pollination and lots of luck will set some True Potato Seed this summer.

True Potato Seed or TPS for short is the actual seed from the little fruits some potatoes make following on from fertilized flowers. These are poisonous, so don't eat them! TPS are not the actual 'seed potatoes' which are the more normal way of buying potatoes.

Potato flowers

Seed pods (TPS) forming

Seeds from inside a potato fruit

I love waxy potatoes, I love coloured potatoes and I love long shaped potatoes. So you might be able to see where I'm going on this one!

These are the varieties I've chosen to grow for this little project;

Snooki and Hot Dog

Snooki and Hot Dog are home bred varieties. Grown from True Potato Seed from a cross I made the previous year. I was delighted with how they did and taste was great, both had lovely long waxy tubers. They were so good hot with a little bit of butter or in a salad. 

Snooki and Hot Dog

Inky Squid was a bit of a surprise, for one the beautiful dark skin and flesh colour and then the taste and texture - they were lovely.

Inky Squid Blue Fingerling

Inky Squid Blue Fingerling

I bought Red Emmalie and Violetta as their description sounded super, both a coloured variety, producing long shaped tubers. Violetta good as a salad variety, Red Emmalie is good for boiling. Information on the British Potato Variety Database indicates they both should readily set TPS

Red Emmalie and Violetta

Inky Squid, Snooki and Hot Dog, shoots are starting
to sprout.

Here they all are together, I'm quite excited at the prospect of planting them all. Avoiding Late Blight I think will be the biggest challenge, as regrettably we seem to be in a hot spot for it here. 

Starting at the top left hand side and running clockwise, Red Emmalie,
Violetta, Inky Squid, Snooki and Hot Dog.