Gardening question - taters

[djf]

This year, as always, I grew a boatload of taters.

Three or four varieties, plus I always have a few stragglers coming up from the previous year.

Most of the plants flowered, and on a few of them I got pods, sort of tomato-like, but they have (I guess) potato seeds in them.

Does anyone know is it safe to grow potatoes from seed? I seem to recall reading that the solanum type plants tend to cross breed and can pick up wild pollen - the thing I'm wondering is if I might somehow end up growing some truly killer taters!!

Anyone ever try this or do this?

Thanks!

[goodwithagun]

Bump, as I’d like to know as well.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

:: growing some truly killer taters!! ::

Taters are developed from poisonous "night shade". If you can grow them to revert, yeah, you could have kliller taters...

But, then again, when I search for "taters" I get the following results

...them ain't "tater tots" buddy!

[djf]

That’s part of what I’m thinking about - there is an indigenous form of Black nightshade here that grows everywhere. It makes small, dark purple almost black berries. I’ve eaten them in small quantities, and they are almost exactly the same as tiny tomatoes.

Web searches disagree about whether or not they are poisonous.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

All “beauty” graphics aside, I believe that the heirloom purple potatoes available in farmers markets are about as close to “poisonous” nightshade one could get - the hybridization is that extensive and watered-out.

My wife cannot eat the heirloom-purples; severe and debilitating indigestion (Upper-GI stress).

[djf]

I grew a ton of purple taters this year. Very good yield. Also a bunch of russets and the Pontiac reds.

But the BEST eating taters I got was a bunch of finger potatoes! Wonderful eating! Problem is, they don’t get very big, so you need to plant them pretty dense to get a good amount.

I need to save as many as I can for seed potatoes. Regular, plain old vanilla seed potatoes were $1 a pound at the Ag shop last spring.
Fingerling seed potatoes were $4.
I didn’t buy any, all I got this year came up from last years leftovers.

[mikrofon]

Must be your "search engine" ...

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Could be, but...

if I keep getting those kinds of results, I don’t see changing my search engine anytime soon.

[drunknsage]

Potatoes and nightshade are far enough away genetically to make cross pollination pretty remote. That is not to say it cant happen but it is highly unlikely.

Regarding the night-shade looking plant, it is likely a member of physalis, aka ground cherry, gooseberry, or cape cod gooseberry. There are a number of different types and some, like the Chinese latern, are poisonous. I have a native physalis I have been growing for a few seasons that i collected locally. It is essentially a mini green tomatoe. You have to be very careful and only eat them when they are ripe. Once they drop, the husk should be brown and crispy. They will also keep for quite a while if left in the husk so it’s totally possible to let them sit for up to a week if you aren’t sure. As long as you aren’t allergic to solanine, the worst it will do is give you the craps.

[djf]

I’m certain it is a type of nightshade.

The leaves have alot of similarity to potato and eggplant leaves.

The flowers look almost exactly like a tomato flower. Small, with white petals, and a yellow crown in the center. Also, they are arranged in the same form on a branching structure, just like cherry tomatoes would be.

I have no doubt it’s nightshade, of some form. Not all nightshade is poisonous.

[djf]

[Yosemitest]

Go buy a 10 Lb bag of red idaho potatoes.
Cut the "eyes" out with about 1 inch of the potatoe attached to the "eyes".
Put the "eye" up into some potting soil and cover with about 1 inch of soil.
Water it and put in a little fertilizer and watch it for a few weeks, and when the plant gets a few inches high, move it/them to the garden.
That's all, except to keep them weeded.
In about two monthes the ground around the plants will start cracking.
Dig one plant up to check for the size of the potatoes on the roots.
When the potatoes get large enough for you, dig all the plants up, and put them, after you wash the dirt off, on some dry hay, in a root cellar,
and don't let the potatoes touch each other on the hay, if you're going to keep them over the winter.
Sprinkle a little seven dust around them, for an insect and rat repellent.
When you want to eat some of them, take the ones you want into the house, wash them 2 or 3 times, and let them dry.
Then peel and cut them, and cook them.

[djf]

Store potatoes are treated so that they don’t sprout. Not for a while, at least.

[goat granny]

freepers are full of unknown knowledge that most people don't have...I grew my potatoes from the refrigerator...had a bunch of potato's that developed eyes and some had small sprouts on them...each eye and sprout was a potential potato plant. Some of the potato's had several eyes, cut them so that each eye has a piece of potato to feed the eye until the plant developers its root system..

.my neighbor always grew his from potato seeds.

I Got a bumper crop of potato's. But never have heard of the deadly nightshade being a close relative...thanks for the info. I hope it comes up in a conversation sometime so I can show my new knowledge..:O)

[djf]

Part of the reason I am wondering is this year digging up taters, I found three small ones.

They were red on the skin, but long and shaped like the finger taters.

So they may actually have cross-pollinated by themselves and I might have a new species of taters that never existed before!

I’m not gonna eat them, I’m going to plant them to see if I can get a crop going!

I love gardening. Really, it’s fascinating. In a slow way, but still fascinating!

[Marcella]

According to professional growers, those round seed pods that an occasional potato plant may produce, are definitely poison and they recommended to get rid of them. Don’t let pets or children get them. I would put on gloves and get them off the plant and get rid of them.

[djf]

Well, the pods themselves are poisonous, as are the leaves and stems of the potato plant. Just like tomatoes.

But if I plant the seeds, I should get leaves and stems and POTATOES!

I know that potatoes that grow on or near the surface and get enough light will start to turn green. When they turn green like that, that means they are starting to act more like a potato plant, and less like a tater itself.

It is recommended to not eat potatoes if they have turned green. In the process of turning green, they start to act like the leaves and stem and produce the nightshade poisons.

But as long as they are not turning green, well, then they’re just taters.
I think.
I hope.

That’s the kind of stuff I’m asking about.

[Marcella]

Put “UTube potato seed” in search and you will find a UTube presentation of a man who uses those seed pods. He goes through what must be done with them before planting them.

I wouldn’t do it, your mileage may vary.

[goat granny]

The only thing different if you plant taters from the refrigerator, you don't get a uniform shape. Like a Russet is always shaped the same way etc...don't know why the different shapes of the taters, but they all taste the same...I loved spading them up. Would take the small ones on the root system and just wipe off the skin and eat it in the garden..I love raw potatoes and the skin is delicate enough to wipe off with your hands...There are always small ones on the root system, they are just baby potatoes that have not had time to mature... I wonder if those 3 of yours are mutations or a throw back to earlier cross polination. I probably wouldn't eat them either if they looked really different from the others...

A bit of info that you probably already know..:O) You lay out your potatoes on a table or board outside for 3 days to let the skin harden and do not wash them until your ready to eat them. The skin has a natural protection to keep them from rotting. I didn't have a root cellar so I would just wipe off the dirt with my hands and wrapped them in many layers of newspaper and put them in a dark corner of the basement...lasted until the end of Feb. doing it that way, and by then quite of few had already sproated plants, but in michigan the ground was frozen or I would have planted them, they had a head start on growing...

With my onions, I used a CLEAN pair of patty hose. dropped an onion in, tied a knot drop another one in, tie a knot. etc. Those I hung in the barn and when I wanted an onion, I just cut off the one on the bottom just under the knot. They lasted in the barn until they froze. Like the potato they lasted 5 months from digging to Feb. then they were frozen solid...

If one has a proper root celler, they will last a lot longer..

[drunknsage]

Yep, definitely nightshade! In the Houston area, silver-leaf nightshade grows EVERYWHERE. I didnt even know what it was until I began researching the ground-cherry plants I discovered. Now I see it everywhere. Here is a pic of a physalis I started from seed.