Racine Urban Garden Network

Dear Potato Gardener:

Please send me an email to seedsaver@curzio.com

if you are interested to enter your name in my list of potato gardeners

(if you are planning to grow garden potatoes now or in the future).

Every year I send out up-dates to remind you about some record keeping

tasks and ensuring our reference sources are up-dated and/or corrected.

My first update was sent in early May to remind you to keep track of the

vine emergence date.

The second update deals with vine length (1) and flowers (2), eventually

TPS - seed pods (3) + early tuber development (4).

I truly appreciate your time to keep records and report them back. Please

help me to keep the flow of information organized as follows:

(1) I'm interested to organize a list of potato cultivars with long and

very long vine length ... especially if you detect shallow tuber set.

[shallow tuber set or opportunistic vines - tubers are set through the

growing season, rather than just deep tuber setting]

This list of cultivar will be added to this Planting Tips page.

Scroll down to the bottom and you will understand how we all shall benefit

of this record keeping.

www.curzio.com/N/Planting_Garden_Potato_in_Kenosha.htm

(2) Not all cultivars develop flowers [depending on soil quality

and day length ... and who knows what other issues]

Please don't tell me! But report back to our comprehensive database on

www.davesgarden.com   + click on Guides and Info + PlantFiles + Potatoes

[you have to sign-up to add data ... it's free]

Find your cultivars, check the reported bloom color is correct.

You may add a picture of the bloom and also add your ZIP code.

Finally you can post a comment to report if the bloom develops into fruit.

(3) if your flowers turn into fruit (TPS) I would like to add this info

to this page www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm

My Potato Gardener network is global.

I only list TPS harvested in Southeastern Wisconsin.

But if you harvest TPS ... you can trade it on www.davesgarden.com

(4) July 4th is the traditional date to go steal spuds!

Removing tubers without pulling the vines is a special treat for the

holiday meal. If you are able to find and "steal" tubers, your

variety should be already listed in my "Early category"

Check listing at the bottom of www.curzio.com/N/PotatoProject.htm

Sometimes the check mark "X" is missing, because we don't know ...

or it's by error placed in the "late" column.

If you can steal tubers by July 4th ... I would like to mention it in the

catalog web page. If you steal tubers in July - early August, make sure

the variety is listed as "Early" on my web page and

on www.davesgarden.com the maturity date should be noted as 71 - 90 days

[the number of days are counted from vine emergence]

Maturity date for potato - this is a quite confusing topic - it is almost

impossible to predict when vines emerge after tubers are planted. The

tuber is self-regulated and will grow vines depending on soil temps.

Therefore you can plant by mid March and wait 6 - 8 weeks to see a vine

emerge, while if you plant in mid June, whitin 4 weeks you may have

flowers on the vines.

Flower buds are one sign to alert you that small tubers may be available

to steal. That can be as short as 40 days ... depending on the variety

and the time of planting.

Thank you for your time!!! ... and happy gardening! Curzio :O)

PS Please don't feel compelled to respond or participate in the data reporting.

      This message goes to hundreds of potato gardeners ... but your

participation is always welcome.