Potato plants

[Honeybabe]

I'm growing potatoes for the first time this year and they seem to be doing well. I'm a bit confused at the moment as there are little green baby tomato looking things growing on the plant! They are hard so not really a tomato. But I had no idea that potatoes had seeds (if they are seeds). Is this normal or do I have some really strange potatoes?
They are near the top of the plant not under the ground where the potatoes should be.

[Chickpea]

I've just planted my first ever potatoes so I'm not an expert.

But I do know that potatoes and tomatoes are so closely related you could call them varieties of the same plant - they both suffer from the same diseases and everything. So I'm not surprised that they are making little fruits.

But I dunno - perhaps you need to pinch them off to persuade the plant to put its efforts into making nice tasty spuds, not inedible pseudo-toms. Hang around - someone who actually knows what they are talking about (i.e. not me) is bound to come along sooner or later.

[Andy Hamilton]

They are closely related also related to deadly nightshade and yep the potato fruits are not edible.

They are the polinated flowers of potatoes. This is how new breeds are made. Each 'fruit' contains 100's of seeds. you can seperate them our and plant them. New varieties are created this way, you might have a maris edward or something there.

Here are some instructions on how to seperate them out. That was written 2 years ago and I never got round to planting mine and instead they got left in a pot and disintrigated.

I think that they take 2 years before you get a potato from seed and sometimes the worst charactrisitcs of each species can be abopted. So you will have a spud prone to disease and with a low yeild. The oposite is also true.

[albert onglebod]

Thats interesting!
Im going to save some of mine for planting then.
I suppose you could just cut them open and scoop some onto tissue like you can with tomatoes and save them dried until next year.
If it takes 2 years though,should I plant them this year and overwinter indoors or are they like wallflowers and can stay outside overwinter?

[Honeybabe]

Thanks Andy, thats interesting. I'll harvest the seeds and see if anything grows. I can't remember what varieties I planted so it will be a surprise.

[Andy Hamilton]

just found this -

Q. My potato plants flowered and formed green fruits that resemble small tomatoes. What are they?

A. These small seed balls are the fruits that contain the true seeds. They are not edible. Except for breeding purposes, growing potato plants from the true seeds in these fruits is a troublesome and unrewarding exercise.

from this site - http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/veggies/potato1.html