In this day and age, most of us are used to just going to the store and buying food. But if you, like me, have realized that Living Healthy and Keeping it Affordable makes this a hardship, you may be looking at growing your own. And, Bravo! Because it does make a difference in your grocery bill and your health! Yes, there may be some additional expense in set up, but organic food and the kind of variety you need are definitely not cheap at grocery stores!

Even at produce stands or Farmer's Markets, you end up paying higher, because you are paying to cover someone else's time and labor. Of course, I would rather give my local farmers the money than one of the big chains...especially since alot of them are not even American owned. That matters to me, especially if there was some sort of war, or another Pandemic and Supply chains were halted. We need Country self-sufficiency, as well as personal. 

And now I wish I had paid more attention when my Grand mothers and other elders were talking about gardening, saving seeds, and the like. So I have been trying to 'catch up' my knowledge gaps with books, seed catelogs, prepper blogs and so forth. This morning, I came across a post about saving seeds, and someone had commented two years ago about potato seeds, didn't even know if there was such a thing,for sure...and no one answered him...for three years!

I hope this guy went ahead and looked it up, like I did this moring...ok, yes, I knew there really is such a thing as potato seeds, but didn't really know why most people don't use them and just use pieces of sprouted potato instead. In case your inquiring mind wants to know, this is what I found out :  

Yes — potato plants do produce seeds, but with some important caveats:

✅ They can make true botanical seeds

• After a potato plant flowers, it may form small green berry-like fruits (sometimes resembling little green cherry tomatoes). These fruits contain many tiny true seeds. Biology Insights+1

• For example: “small green fruits … each containing about 300 seeds.” Wikipedia+1

• These true seeds are sometimes called “true potato seed” (TPS) to distinguish them from the tubers (which are commonly used for propagation). Gardening Know How+1

⚠️ But seeds are rarely used for growing garden potatoes

• Commercially and in most home gardens, potatoes are grown by planting tubers (or pieces of tubers) rather than by planting these true seeds. GardenersNet.Com+1

• There are a few reasons for this:

  • The offspring from true seeds are genetically varied (i.e., the plants grown from seeds won’t necessarily be identical to the parent). Biology Insights

  • Tubers (the “seed potatoes”) already contain stored nutrients, giving the plant a head-start, whereas true-seed-grown plants may take longer to mature. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

  • Many potato varieties either don’t reliably produce fruits/seeds under everyday garden conditions, or producing seed is less practical for commercial production. northernhomesteading.com+1

🧐 So what’s the usual “seed potato” then?

The term seed potato commonly used in gardening is a misnomer in the sense of “true seeds”. It refers to a potato tuber (or piece thereof) that is planted to produce a new plant. IMP WORLD+1

 While this site is not about gardening, it is here to try and make healthy living more affordable. So, if you are looking for a product in the gardening niche and can't find it, or can't find a good price on it, let us know and we will be glad to see if we can find it for you!