Potato Flowers 2022 (Part 1?)

Year after year, potato flower posts rank near the top of the most popular content on this site, so I know you like potato flowers.  Due to difficult weather and a late planting, mine are behind schedule this year and really just coming into widespread flowering.  With a few exceptions, these are seedling varieties from […]

Oca: Around the oca patch

We spent a few hours collecting oca (Oxalis tuberosa) cuttings with maturing pods today – about 250 in total.  That should translate into a lot of seed.  With more than 4000 seeds as of today, it is tempting to get lazy and let these open pollinated pods go, but there is no guarantee that we’ll […]

Oca: Thoughts on flowering

I’ve had pretty good luck this year getting oca (Oxalis tuberosa) to flower and set seed.  I’m growing enough plants to start to perceive some patterns regarding flowering.  This information may be helpful to prospective oca breeders, but could also be misleading, based on such a limited period of time. Climate I have not grown […]

Oca: Flower forms

I use the descriptors established by the International Institute of Phytogenetic Resources for the oca (Oxalis tuberosa) profiles on this site.  They define three flower forms: round, starlike, and pentagonal.  Here is what each of them looks like: Round is defined as 75% or greater overlap of the petals. Round oca flower Starlike is defined […]

Potatoes: Potato flowers (Part 2)

The stats for my first post of potato flower pictures showed a lot of people doing web searches for potato flowers.  So, by indirect but popular demand, I bring you part two.  There are also some general updates about our potato season toward the bottom. Black Irish potato flowers Azul Toro potato flowers Maris Piper […]

Potatoes: Potato flowers

One thing that you miss when buying your potatoes at the store is the wonderful display that they put on when they flower.  Flowering is good news for the traditional potato grower, as it signals the beginning of tuberization.  It is also good news for those who want to grow from seed, since the plant […]

Oca: Flowering & crossing update

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) dropped flower

Well, the good news is that our oca (Oxalis tuberosa) is continuing to flower in good numbers, with 20-30 new flowers opening every day across seven varieties.  I have been doing my best bumble bee imitation, transferring pollen from one end of the garden to the other in the hope of producing oca seeds.  Unfortunately, […]

Oca: Short-styled flower up close

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) short-styled flower

I’ve noticed that pollen doesn’t seem to mature at the same time for the different tiers of anthers in oca (Oxalis tuberosa) flowers.  Sometimes the longer stamens seem to have loose pollen, while the shorter stamens don’t.  I spent some time looking at oca flowers under the microscope to see if I could find a […]

Oca: Hopin for flowers

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) variety 'Hopin' flowering

First flower on a Hopin oca plant Yesterday, I wrote of my surprise at finding June flower buds on some of our oca (Oxalis tuberosa) plants.  Today’s events were not quite as surprising, but still unexpected.  We have our first oca flower.  It opened on a plant of the Hopin variety sometime between 10AM and […]