tater seeds

[hillbilly]

Got a good one for the garden guru's here at the swamp...
Ive raised taters since i was knee high to a grasshopper. My grandfathers CB handle(for you young'ns, a CB was a radio long before Al Gore invented the internet, and a "handle" is like your login name nowadays...) was tater king.
Probably dug more taters than most folks have ever ate, but in all those years, and thousands of lbs of taters, i never saw the seeds pods.(or ever heard about them other than rumors)
Well i haved them this year. Got six rows, and last count 5 seed pods...
The seed taters i planted were yukon gold(no, grandpa never heard of them), have planted them for several years prior, but this year, they produced seed.

What i gather on the internet, the little green, cherry tomato like pods are seed pods. Ive got 4-5 vines that have these seed pods, and id like to know what i should do with them?
Should i wait till the vines die off like i normally do, should i harvest the sooner?
I consider myself rather handy in the ways of propigation and survival, but up till now, other than saving taters for seed stock, ive never had a choice, and am EXTEMELY INTERESTED in saving seed(regardless cultivar) for a "rainy day".

[tinknocker1]

i would let every thing die off that would mean the seeds would be mature .. i'm sure they will dry after the plant dies off ..then save them store them in a dry container ..plant the seeds in peat pods and watch them lil tators grow .. ;D

[barkspud]

I grew up in tater country and have stacked more bags of taters then cared to. They used to let us off from school to work the feilds come harvest in the fall. The rotten tater fights in the tater house in the winter was crazy. and stinky.. I have never heard of potatoe pods or seeds very interesting.

[Admin]

The only way I ever heard of planting taters was by cutting tater sections that had eyes in them and planting that. No clue on the pods.

Speaking of taters...
I only grew them once and kind of forgot when to start hilling them. This year I'm growing them in barrels and will keep adding dirt as needed rather than hilling. When do you start hilling them? Do you bring the dirt up to the lowest leaves on the stem? I forgot what to do with these.

[jimbison]

JC I hilled mine twice already once when about 4 inches high and again when they were about a foot high i hill them so the top of the plant is only an inch or so above ground now i only have to weed spray for bugs once the hill is about a foot high i stop hilling i have alittle over 70 pounds in red norlands yes you can covermost of the leaves they will be fine some of mine get covered completly when hilling pop rite out ina day or two jim

[ninedeer]

what Jim said JC ;D

[Admin]

Thank you Jim. I best be getting to that hilling.

[paddyg441]

;D ;D

"JC", I was taught at a young age, the purpose of hilling was to slow the growth of the plant. This then, allows all of the nutrients and nourishment to enter into the growth and development of the Taters.

After all, successful production of the Tater is what we want, not some over grown Plant full of Potato Bugs.

Our Way

[hillbilly]

UPDATE...
i lost all but one of my seed pods on my taters do to straight line winds of 100mph several weeks ago.
I lost a carport(still looking for it), trees and a mailbox, but i braved the winds(lost my drawers in the process, but i doubt anybody saw) mid storm to get those seed pods. Wound up with one,and its drying right now.

I'd do it again in a hearbeat, but im going commando next time, was my favorite pair of shorts that got sucked off of me in the wind storm.

[tinknocker1]

Jul 11, 2012 0:17:56 GMT -5 hillbilly said:

UPDATE...
i lost all but one of my seed pods on my taters do to straight line winds of 100mph several weeks ago.
I lost a carport(still looking for it), trees and a mailbox, but i braved the winds(lost my drawers in the process, but i doubt anybody saw) mid storm to get those seed pods. Wound up with one,and its drying right now.

I'd do it again in a hearbeat, but im going commando next time, was my favorite pair of shorts that got sucked off of me in the wind storm.

hillbilly we had them straight line winds here to wowzer ....people lost power almost 2 weeks

[TRAPnHUNT]

Although I do like taters, I love sweet potatoes best. Has anyone grown sweet potatoes and if so, do you have to do anything different than any other tater when it comes to growing them?

I'm tossing around the idea of growing them next year in cages in order to get the most amount of air to the soil. I've seen people use wood tater towers & garbage can towers but they dont seem to get enough air to the soil.