Waiting, waiting

This is one of the slow times between work. The tubers are in, the plants are growing, the new seedlings are just germinating and none of these need any care for now.

 Every year my flower colour chart is wrecked by the end of the season but this year I decided to search out my laminator and laminate it. I know it is not something that is hard to do, but I just never get around to it.

The new chart should last a bit longer now, lol.

The colour charts are just another thing for my records - everything to do with each variety, including the flower colour, is recorded on its variety spec sheet. this helps to make sure that similar varieties in the future are not named the same, and people know exactly what they are getting, and how it will grow, planning for harvest times, etc.

I can't see a time when any of my varieties will catch interest from commercial potato growers but there might be a time when one of my varieties gets mixed up with another. This may help sort that out.

My TPS is starting to germinate, a little slower than I expected but no big deal.
I didn't put in many seeds this year due to lack of space but I really love to find new and interesting varieties so I can't help but plant some seed every year.

The seed was also getting a bit old and I didn't want to waste it.

I am hoping to get a lot more seed for sale this year as I had a bad year for seed set last time for no reason I can fathom.

I am going to start keep a lot more varieties from now on, even those I would not normally keep. This is because I have decided to horde genetic diversity for other breeders in the future to use. It is hard to find genetically diverse TPS or tubers in Australia so I will help with that.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, especially from those of you who bought TPS from me last year. I see that your seedlings are germinating too and I am happy to help with any problems you might run into.