Potatoes which look like tomatoes...Help!

melanie22_2

I'm new at this but i've read quite a bit but i was given some chitted potatoes (which i can't recall the name of) and i planted them as per instruction, kept earthing them up as the shoots broke the soil but had to stop when the soil ridges were so high i couldn't raise it any more.

I left them alone for a couple of months and the plants are now roughly a foot and a half high but the have clusters of fruit looking type things (green) hanging on them.

Are these the potatoes and should i be flattening them and covering them over. I mean i already raised the soil as high as i possibly could but there are tons of them. They are clustered together like tomatoes would.

Totally clueless now. Can anyone offer answers?

hermie

This was on the Beechgrove Garden prog the other night and they said that the "fruit" bits were very poisonous and should be removed esp if you have children around but this doesn't harm the actual potatoes though so enjoy them when they are ready to eat
Ps Think it's because potatoes and tomatoes are in the same "family" that this happens.

RAS

melanie22 wrote: »

I left them alone for a couple of months and the plants are now roughly a foot and a half high but the have clusters of fruit looking type things (green) hanging on them.

Are these the potatoes and should i be flattening them and covering them over. I mean i already raised the soil as high as i possibly could but there are tons of them. They are clustered together like tomatoes would.

Totally clueless now. Can anyone offer answers?

Tomatoes and potatoes are related which is why they both get blight.

The clusters you can see are the fruits which are likely to be poisonous.

You need to put a fork in the ground about a foot from the plant, dig it in and then lift your potatoes which are underground. You do not say whether they are earlies, mains or what but if they have fruited they will have started to bulk up anyway.

You need to be careful not to spear the potatoes although they are OK if you then use them quickly.

Store the others in dark paper bags to preven thte light getting to them and spoiling them.

I teend to dig the potatoes up at one side of the plant and once that is clear (you have dug the fork into its full depth and turned the soil over and there are no potatoes), then I dig closer to the centre and clear that bit ... until I have lifted them all.

arkonite_babe

I had the same problem earlier in the season, I wrote a blog post about it actually, hang on I'll link you to it so you can read it...
http://www.arkonite.net/2009/07/potatoes-or-tomatoes.html

There's also a link from my blog page about a guy who experimented using the potato fruit to grow more potatoes the following season.

HTH

buddywitch

Its time to cut the tops off the potatoes and put the tops in the compost. The potatoes in the ground will be fine.

valk_scot

buddywitch wrote: »

Its time to cut the tops off the potatoes and put the tops in the compost. The potatoes in the ground will be fine.

Nooo, you shouldn't put potato tops or peelings or any sorts of potato debris in compost bins. Potato plants are terribly prone to all sorts of nasty viruses and diseases and even though the plants look healthy this year they're almost certainly carrying these diseases. You want to minimise the build up of all this in your plot, so don't put potato debris in the composters to be spread around all over the place next year.

This goes x100 if there's even the faintest suggestion of blight in your potatoes. Blight spores overwinter in the soil.

arkonite_babe

valk_scot wrote: »

Nooo, you shouldn't put potato tops or peelings or any sorts of potato debris in compost bins. Potato plants are terribly prone to all sorts of nasty viruses and diseases and even though the plants look healthy this year they're almost certainly carrying these diseases. You want to minimise the build up of all this in your plot, so don't put potato debris in the composters to be spread around all over the place next year.

This goes x100 if there's even the faintest suggestion of blight in your potatoes. Blight spores overwinter in the soil.

Top advice, any plants which show signs of any disease should not be composted, you'll only end up with more problems!