{"id":18,"date":"2008-11-13T21:14:15","date_gmt":"2008-11-14T02:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theextremegardener.com\/blog\/?p=18"},"modified":"2015-10-10T13:10:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-10T17:10:46","slug":"two-sibling-potatoes-from-seed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"Two sibling potatoes from seed"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1994, I grew out some true seed taken from Blue Shetland potatoes in our garden. Of the 24 seedlings, we selected six to grow a second season, and of those six, we have kept two over the years.<\/p>\n

The Blue Shetlands, the parent, came originally from Will Bonsal in Maine via the Seed Saver’s Exchange, and have dark violet skin, yellow flesh, and a tendency to have a violet ring. Seed was collected from the plants in 1987. Blue Shetlands have some of what I call “primitive” potato characteristics, compared to the modern potato varieties most people grow. The more primitive potatoes tend to have smaller tubers, the leaves are a bit smaller in proportion to the stalks, and eyes deeper. They also may send the tubers out through the soil further away from the above ground part of the plant, so finding them all can be a challenge, especially the dark blue skinned types.<\/p>\n

So, here’s our Purple Gold, a bit lighter and redder skinned than the parent’s dark violet, but the same yellow flesh, and tendency to have a purple ring.<\/p>\n

\"Purple\"Purple<\/p>\n

…and Rose Gold, a reddish version. I love the rose star in the flesh. They both have that rich yellow-flesh potato flavor – our favorite for skillet fries and potato salad.<\/p>\n

\"Rose\"Rose<\/p>\n

If you do grow potatoes from true seed, when you judge the offspring, first look for culinary characteristics that you like, even if the tubers are smaller than you want. It can take a few seasons of growing out for a potato variety to really show its full potential for tuber size and yield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1994, I grew out some true seed taken from Blue Shetland potatoes in our garden. Of the 24 seedlings, we selected six to grow a second season, and of those six, we have kept two over the years. The Blue Shetlands, the parent, came originally from Will Bonsal in Maine via the Seed Saver’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42,12],"tags":[56],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":434,"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theextremegardener.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}