Did somebody try to plant a second crop of potatoes using tubers of this year? If so, how mature tubers have to be(full size per variety, half size, etc., ) and do they need cold period and for how long? I am looking for a way to keep my seeds potatoes better so it would really help if they mature later in the season. I plant seed potatoes in pots, so I can even take them in while it is too hot outside, I only care about an ability to use my own seeds and have seeds potatoes for next year to be ready in deep fall instead of middle of July when I have them ready with one crop.
Hi Galina, I have planted my seed potatoes in the fall (I think this is what you are asking). I mostly grow mid to late varieties for storage. Mulched and they did fine. Except one year mice had a field day all winter with the ready food and ate about half of them so I went back to spring planting. Potatoes that I miss when digging grow up just fine the next year without any mulch or bother. As long as they don’t freeze they’ll grow. If the volunteers are not in the way I let them grow, but usually try to weed them out.
I also plant twice in the spring, some early May (which I often have to cover because of frosts) and then my main crop the end of May so I don’t have to worry so much about late frosts. Different years one or the other does better but it all depends. I’m in a colder spot so my planting window is probably smaller (to make sure they mature before fall).
For me, the tubers keep just fine in the ground until I want to dig them in October, even if the plants die from frost blight in august. Sue
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I guess I was not clear enough… I only plant early potatoes and just about 20 plants, so I need just few seed potatoes. This is what I want to do. Plant few last year tubers as early is possible in the pots and the rest later in the ground. Harvest them from the pots as early as they ready. (somewhere in July) . Plant what I harvested into posts in August. Harvest in October and store till spring. In spring plant few in the pots and majority in the ground… Repeat 
What I don’t know, if August planting will germinate at all. And if I need to chill what I harvested in July between July and August.
I think I found an answer to my question. New potatoes are not very good with germination. There are few tricks that help them to do so. First, bunch of chemicals I am not sure I even can find for sale. Second, You have to get most young tubers and disturb their skin - that encourage them to grow. But the best method for home gardener to delay harvest of seed potatoes is to replant potato greens. You dig up whole bush, choose only young healthier stems with roots and even micro tubers and plant them in good soil a little dipper they were growing before somewhere in June-July. They will be ready later in fall, so will store better than harvested in July.
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I understand that there are long day and short day potatoes, like onions
The ones we most plant in the US are long day. Maybe what you need is to find short day varieties?
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I’m curious, @galinas. Instead of trying to germinate potatoes you harvest in a given year (I think you are proposing harvesting potatoes in mid summer and planting them a couple months later and harvesting in October) why not just save some of the seed potatoes that you plant in the spring/early summer, and plant them in August. They would probably start to sprout on their own in storage, but I think they would still be plenty viable to plant in August and would probably take off much quicker than new potatoes would-if new potatoes would sprout at all 2 months after being dug.
You probably already thought of this and I may be missing something, but I wanted to ask. I’ve had left over seed potatoes in the spring that seemed viable through to fall.
My potatoes stored in fridge sprouted between Feb and March. I do not like sprouted potatoes with long shoots, I like to do them right, take out of dormancy under light, so they grow very short green shoots and roots. I will try to store them in colder fridge next year, but I want to have options to get my seeds dormant in mid March by harvesting later in the season. I already figured out that new potatoes most likely will not germinate on it’s own. Instead, I will try transplanting young green shoots somewhere in June - this will make new potatoes later in the season.
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I’ve always stored potatoes in a basement or cellar so I’ve got no experience with refrigeration. Also, I am assuming you are talking about various white potatoes and not sweet potatoes, but you mentioned transplanting young green shoots and that is something I’ve never done with white potatoes (here we tend to call all white potatoes “Irish potatoes” but I know that is terribly inaccurate- I just am not sure what to call them as a group. WIth white potatoes, I always cut them into pieces and make sure there is an “eye” on each piece before planting. But I do sweet potatoes like you mentioned…I just pull the green (or purple) shoots off the mother potato and plant them in some potting soil until they root and then plant them out. This is soooo much cheaper than buying the slips at a retail store.
Good luck with getting 2 crops in 1 year. It’s an interesting idea.
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Transplanting green shoot is something I just read today when I was looking for information about second crop. They say, when the first set of tubers is ready, dig the bush out, collect sizable potatoes, than choose one-two young fresh shoots and separate them from the rest of the bush, keep roots and micro tubers intact. Then plant them a bit dipper than they grew before and keep moist. The shoot may look wilt for a week, but should recover. Never tried it myself, so this year it will be the first attempt 
. I am also looking in a way to mimic cellar condition in the fridge. I am thinking about modified chest freezer (like for storing apples), pan of water for humidity and small fan inside. I will let you know next year if this idea will come to life 
.
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Very, very interesting. I look forward to hearing your experiences.
BTW…as far as cellar storage goes, I usually have good luck but not always in storing potatoes that way. Once in a while I have a very large rot percentage. I always suspect it has to do with how much dirt was left on the potatoes or how well I air cured them/dried them before taking them to the cellar and so on. But I feel like I do everything the same way each year, and some year I get a lot of rot and most years I do not. Another one of natures mysteries! hope your refrigerator technique works for you.
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Where I grow, I need to get the 2nd crop of potatoes in sometime in July to have a harvest in the fall/winter.
Some of my potatoes are slow to sprout, so I just wait and plant them later as @thecityman alluded to. Where I grow, some of this 2nd crop if sown Apr/May/June can fail to form tubers since the ground temp can be >80 deg so I need to plant later, like July so tubers are forming in the fall. This 80 deg temp limit can happen more easily in pots, esp the black nursery kind in late summer.
I have to grow potatoes in protected areas, like pots (I have very large ones that cannot be moved), or, raised beds with hardware cloth below or around them. Otherwise, as @Sue-MiUPz3 mentioned, ground rodents may find them.
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Oh, I see now what you’re wanting. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes for you if you do the greens route. We really do have such different growing conditions! Potatoes are so easy to grow here I don’t think of the challenges others have. But I wish you luck with it! Sue
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