Birth of Amey Azul

Amey Azul came to exist from open pollinated true potato seed of Amey Russet in 2010 that for the purpose of this trial I called Amey X F1. I grew a large amount of TPS seedlings for 8 weeks indoors and transplanted them outdoors.  Amey X results were 4 distinct segregates.

Amey X seedlings grown in 2010 

Amey X F1 seedlings ready for transplant in early May outdoors. 

At the time of transplant I noticed one russet and one blue potato. I was very intriged by the blue segregate and noticed in my growing notes that Amey Russet was next to Mule Skinner Blues at the time they both were flowering. Most likely this was the male donor for the OP TPS.

Segregation of Amey X F1 2010 shows 2 smooth skin potatoes and 2 russets. The smooth skin were pink and white flesh, yellow skin with pale yellow flesh and the russets were yellow flesh and white flesh. In this case it seems the russet gene is not fully express thus the skin is flaky strengthening the hypothesis that the donor was not a russet potato. 

My interest is to be able to identify good potatoes as TPS seedling grow outs in terms of potential yield and flavor. In this case only the 2 russets has potatoes of significant size. Therefore from all these only the russets were selected to grow again. The first year grown as clone was only Amey X1 and Amey X2. 

Amey X2 was impressive with good yield and was named Amey Azul. The flavor is not too impressive but makes a good salad potato. 

Amey Azul failed to give TPS on the first year grown as clone but it showed lots of flowers and very sturdy sprawler plant. The following year as clone then produced abundance of berries that gave over 1000 true potato seeds. Self reliance and sustainability can be achieved by growing seedlings of Amey Azul TPS.

Maybe I lost touch with food reality

We, in general, probably lost touch with food reality. 

I was lucky enough to live 18 years being part of a family-owned small farm in a tropical island. There, we raise animals for food and planted vegetables and fruits to eat. I was raised eating wholesome foods, non processed and seasonally. And we also practice the old fashioned trade with neighbors. My dad butchered pigs once per year, sometimes on request also, and we made sausages and dried the meat. In theory I even know how to do it. If I ever absolutely have to do it; must be done humanely in one stroke. We raised ducks, laying hens and ate that. My dad planted corn to grind to feed them as supplement. Mostly they ate veggie peels and worms! 

The next door neighbor supplied fresh milk in exchange for eggs. I used to complain about the smell of the milk or eggs but wow do I miss that now!!! My dad used their droppings to fertilize the garden. Wow I hated to help scrape that cow manure or chicken manure~~~yuck!! Now I go to a farm to source the chicken manure and cow manure! My dad must be laughing each time I make a face now. His laughter rings in my ears each time I haul a bag of stinky horse poo from Littleton . Occasionally around May I also go beg for coffee grinds at Starbucks for extra nitrogen. Anything I can use without raising rabbits. Wait.... they are cute! Why not? Maybe next year? Can someone help me butcher them? 

We ate what was in season. Wild fruits were plenty. We ate guava and bananas instead of candy. Coconut water and fruit year around. We had 2 seasons: in summer you had mango and avocado and the winter time was oranges and citrus. Once a year the pineapples. To this day, I don't feel like eating oranges until....DECEMBER.  

My first time drinking soda was 15 years old. It was a treat from dad. He likes grape and pineapple soda. Completely fake flavor too. Most we drank natural juices. Also most of the time we ate limber, a frozen treat of fresh juices and cane sugar. Also occasionally we had piraguas; shave iced drizzled with fruit syrup. 

Once in College I still had 75% of the food from home. I carried large quantities of veggies, fruits and juices that were not processed other than "squeezed" or puree pulp of fruit. I was popular with my room mates with my endless supply of fruits and veggies.

As I moved into the modern world after college I started to make bad additions of processed food mostly due to 'lack of time'. With work and all is hard to cook from scratch and oh boy! my body does not agree with it. I never experienced allergy before or skin issues until last few years living in USA. I, of course,as soon as I started to get eczema and asthma reverted to my origins but some of these issues remain! I can not get rid of all the junk (GMO traces, preservatives) that is added to the food. I try to eat mostly what I produce in my yard but still I have to buy food outside. I buy from local farmers. I source my eggs in a small farm. They are not organic but I see the chickens eating worms and food scraps from the farmer veggie patch in the summer time. Since I don't know what they eat in winter time I eat less eggs! I was sourcing my milk in another one that had low temp pasteurization to not destroy the milk proteins but they only have the black and white Holstein cows which has the bad casein....I found one farm that has milk from Jersey cow in Lee but doesn't sell directly to consumers; just wholesale. I am in the look out of Guernsey cows....

Eating organic food is expensive so I think eating seasonally, wholesome and locally is the way to go. 

Have you lost touch too with food reality? 

Trying to find a gem in the genes of TPS

The potato plants all grew in a big box together. Initially my intention was to separate each plant and observe their growth habit but as gardening season caught up with me I decided to leave them all in one box. 

Clearly 4 different potatoes segregates were growing from this TPS seed. They were easy to separate after the harvest. But I noticed that the plants have different maturity dates. Some died first some others a longer growing season. More notes to take for next year. 

Also, none of them flowered and that show signs of being not fertile. Not a good characteristic if I want a reliable potato producer of TPS. 

The harvest was rather disappointing.  As the tiny tubers were already showing, 2 dark skin blue, one white and one pinkish. But the yield was too little.

Another....
    undesirable....
        characteristic! 

Nevertheless it is exciting to create a new potato variety. The pinkish skin was pretty also but.....What is the most important factor for me? Flavor!

Are any of this 4 potatoes unique? 

Are they worth growing next year? 

I cut into one potato from each group to see the flesh color finally. 

One whole year of wait was killing me!!!  

The first blue was blue and white inside.....Not surprising....

The white one was just boring to look at......

The pinkish one was pale yellow inside. Not too exciting.....

The second blue was concentric white and blue...A bit more interesting.....  

Anyway flavor is what is important after all!

The best way to test for flavor is to cook them in different ways. I like to boil the potato and taste just as is. Is the potato floury or waxy? Is it good for boiling or is it better to roast? 

 The white and yellow inside were both good flavor but nothing out of ordinary. The two blues were similar taste also nothing out of the ordinary.

Should I try a different TPS seed next time? Maybe this TPS was not out of the ordinary because it was self-pollinated.  Should I go into TPS discovery next year? What if someday, I stumble across an amazing potato?  All these thoughts make me wonder what if someday..... Would I witness the birth of a remarkable potato?!!

Passion for growing food

My unquenchable desire to grow delicious, colorful and unique foods has led me to discover new vegetables and flavors that few years ago I would have never imagine even existed.  From colorful corn to exotic asian greens, the canvas of my vegetable garden changes year to year.

My resolve to achieve a self-sustainable garden and grow reliance vegetables is stronger than ever. And with it, my garden somehow have taken an international flair. I now grow Italian tomatoes, Asian greens, Middle-eastern legumes and New World crops and more.

In the area of  Asian inspired produce, sometimes you can find Thai Basil and Mizuna,  Garbanzo or Bangladesh hot chiles.

The star of this next season will be one of my discoveries from last year : Koimo sweet potato.

Baked koimo sweet potato

Coincidentally I grew this variety and serendipity stroke once baked! Koimo has the best flavor, sweet and dense.

This year more about this; stay tuned.

It seems that TPS are going to be diverse

In late March I was ready to transplant my 12 potato seedlings to larger individual containers because they already overgrowed their 4 in pots. Some of them already measured 6 inches. Usin several 1/3 gallon plastic juice containers I started filling my bigger containers with some soil and assigned a number to them: TPS#1 through TPS#12.

Since my plants have marked differences, I decided to write in their container any noticeable characteristics. For instance TPS#1 has a bit of rust or red colored areas where the leaves meet the main stem. To my surprise, when I removed the plant from its pot, I found several pea size purple potato tubers already forming in the stolons. I removed several to use as seed tubers to clone this plant and double my chances of successfully harvest some of the potatoes.

I continued to pot TPS#2, this has more color in the stem and the veins of the leaves and was no surprise to find tuber forming as well and as I expected their were purple as well, although the skin color was actually darker than TPS#1, almost black.

The third plant was a little different, the color of the plant was very similar to TPS#1 but the tubers found were not purple as I though it was going to be but mauve color. Interesting, maybe later plant TPS #3 would have more color differences from the first. I kept transplanting some more. Now I am curious about those with green stem and no obvious color in the veins of the leaves. Could they be white? So the next one, TPS#4, is a green one. I removed from it's container and saw the white tubers. Good. I seem to be catching up to the plant clues, the stem is the skin color, now the question is what is the color inside?

I have to wait, I don't want to sacrifice a tiny tuber that have the potential of being a productive plant, just to satisfy my curiosity. Took another plant, TPS#5, green stem, no color on the leaves and to my surprise the tubers are not white but the most beautiful pink. Very interesting...and I though I was reading the clues that the plants had with their coloration, I guess is not as easy as I though. The others turn to be TPS#6, white, TPS#7, purple, TPS#8 bi-color mauve with cream color on the apical end, TPS#9, purple, TPS#10, white, TPS#11 and TPS#12 have no potatoes formed yet. They are smaller than the other 10 so I left them in the same pots to grow more. Also those look like vines with tiny leaves.

From all the plants I got 25 seed tubers. What is the color of their flesh i wonder? I have to wait about 1 month or month and a half to put them in the garden. Each tiny tuber has the potential of growing a plant like a regular potato seed. I place them in a warm spot to break their dormancy and wait until they pipp up to plant directly in the garden once is 50F at night with the rest of the TPS seedlings.

The first 10 plants are now waiting for transplant day in their larger container pots.

The progress of my TPS seedlings

About 12 seeds germinated from the seeds sowed in early January. I potted them up in 4in pot to wait until they grew a little more to transplant them in their individual 4in pots. I started to notice differences in the plants, for instance some have the entire stem green while others have color in their stems and in the veins of the leaves. Also most of the plants grow straight up but there are 2 or 3 that have tiny leaves and grow very spindly almost like vines. I wonder if the other genes of the mother purple plant are coming through in the daughters. I am intrigued to know if those with color in the leaves are blue or red or if the ones with all the stem green has white or yellow flesh. I have a lot to discover and just the idea of having the ability to create a diffent potato from the original is very exciting. I have to think of a naming system or create an unique name for each one, so once I harvest their potatoes I could track the characteristics and looks at the pictures to see how they reflect the final product. In about a month from now I will come back with pictures of my TPS seedlings.

The ancient secret of Amazonian Terra Preta

Terra Preta. A fine example of self-sustainable agriculture with highly sofisticated soil management developed by native cultures. Is this knowledge all lost?

There is a region in the Amazon basin that has hectares of a type of soil that doesn’t lose fertility and it’s manmade, pre-Columbian actually. This dark soil is surrounded by sterile soil typical of the rainforest area. In this soil are remains of unfired clay pottery chards, fish bones, slow-burnt vegetable debris converted to charcoal, animal manures and high levels of soil microorganism activity including micorizzhae. The soil rich in hummus would not leach nutrients and also seems to stay stable over hundreds of years. Could disease brought to America by Europeans wipe out the elder generations causing the knowledge of the amazonic terra preta to be lost?

Half a century later we are re-discovering the agricultural value of BioChar and it's carbon sequestering properties. BioChar made by pyrolisis (combustion of biomass in absence of oxigen) yields a material very similar to Terra Preta.

Pre-Columbian Indians in the Americas made amazing contributions in agriculture and also breed some of the most important crops of the world like corn, potato, tomato, peppers, cocoa bean, sunflower, peanuts and beans. In North America they developed methods like the Iroquois 3-sisters system , the invention by the Incas of cultivating in terraces and raise beds that have proven over time not only to be very productive techniques of agriculture but water conservation and erosion control. They could have discovered the secrets of self-sustainable agriculture and the Terra Preta remains as silent proof waiting for it's secret to be unlocked.