green berries or fruit on potato plants

by Carla
(Tacoma WA)

Good afternoon,

I live in W. Washington. I have a wonderful crop of potatoes in our home garden.

On the tops of a couple plant are green tomato looking things about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch. They grow in a group of 2 to 5.

What are these little things? In all the years I have had potatoes in my garden I have never seen this before.

Thank you

Carla

Comments for green berries or fruit on potato plants

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Oct 04, 2011

Potato/Tomato
by: Kiwi George

Hi Carla. No problem as the potato and the tomato are both genus Solanum (Google has much information)as are may other plants. The only problem I have had is planting a tomato crop following a potato crop in the same bed as diseases common to both can be retained in the soil and infect the next crop. Best remedy is to follow a planned rotation of crops to give the diseases time to die off.
Regards
George

Oct 04, 2011

green berries or fruit on potato plants
by: Carla

Thank you George for the info.
I really haven't had any tomatoes or potatoes growing in the same part of the garden. But thank you again for the info. Carla

Oct 09, 2011

Potato fruits
by: ~ Megan

They do look like little tomatoes don't they? But don't worry, they can't cross pollinate even though as George says, they belong to the same family. Definitely they can catch the same diseases as mentioned.

These little green berries are the fruit of the potato plant, but don't eat them, as like the leaves, they are very high in an alkaloid poison called solanine. Some spud plants produce fruit from their flowers, but usually the flowers just die off. Those that do fruit can be a nuisance because the seeds can spread and you'll have spuds coming up everywhere - and they won't be true to the parent plants, often not much good producing smaller spuds.

The 'taters that we eat are actually swollen underground roots that form tubers. They are fascinating plants and I've read so much and learned everything and more from the most helpful and comprehensive book I now have on my Growing Potatoes page. Have a look and if you plan on a prolific potato pile, grab yourself a copy - it's comes as an instant online download.

Oct 09, 2011

Potato berries
by: Carla

Thank you Megan, that was very interesting, was wondering if the critters would eat them so picked them all and tossed.

I will take a look at the book you mentioned.

Thank you again Carla

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