Potatoes in my border

Hello everyone

Over the last few weeks it's become apparent that I have some potatoes growing in my border. I can only assume that the previous tenant may have chucked a load of old potatoes out at some time and they are now growing.

Will these be ok to eat? How can you tell?

I am growing my own potatoes at the moment in a couple of bags on the patio and they seem to be doing well. It would be interesting to compare mine with these "wild" ones but I don't want to risk eating them if they could be potentially be harmful.

Thanks

Little Green

 

Hi Little Green,

They won't hurt you unless they have grown from a potato apple seed, which is unlikely.

problem is, they might be carrying blight as they've not been grown from certified "seed" potatoes (not true seeds, but clones raised under the best possible conditions)

I'd have them out as earlies, before the late season blight comes.

 

What's one of those Ziggy? Potato apple seed I mean.

 

The flowers produce what looks like a tomato, but poisonous Dave.

It'll have viable seeds in it but they could have crossed with any other variety in the neighbourhood so could (and probably will) produce a new variety.

All our regular varieties are clones from the same plant, which means every single King Edward is the same plant.

When new varieties are grown from seed crosses, they have to be tested for Solanine content, poisoning from that usually just puts you on the loo, but could be fatal.

A variety slipped thru the tests a few years back, fortunately it was eaten by someone who recognised the symptoms of Solanine poisoning & reported it.

 

That's good info Ziggy, thanks for that. Its particularly useful for me because I know the green apple/tomato poisonous things you speak of, and have often considered trying to grow them on, figuring it would be a cheap way to produce blight free seedies.

I just didn't know what they were called, and I certainly didn't know there was a real (or any) risk associated with the potatoes they might produce.

 

I'm glad you found that of use Dave

Always good to highlight Potato Apples at this time of year, before someone tries to make green potato chutney out of them.

Just been reading that we can tolerate a certain amount of Solanine, but when the spuds are noticeably bitter then we've already reached a level that is toxic:OUCH:

 

Well my guess is they are left overs from an earlier crop.
Could be peelings from a compost heap.
Probably wont actually come to much, mine never do, so I try to get them out, mini spud and all.
I'm not convinced they will carry blight, that will already be lingering in the soil if its happened before.

I think the certified seed potato "thing" is more about stopping virus being transferred, but I could be wrong.

 

Partly right there pete. The "seed" spuds are grown in windier places where virus carrying aphids are less likely to take hold.

But the blight, whilst possibly in the soil already, if left to survive on tubers or foliage over winter hatches out into something far more devastating.

I mean, the facehugging thing on Alien was pretty bad when it kissed John Hurt, but that was nothing compared to the next morning at breakfast.

 

P.S.

Kristen & John will explain it better without using analogies to si-fi.

 

I had a potato growing in my border last year, it was a missed potato and in amongst the compost i had chucked onto the borders. I pulled it out and due to the little potato on the end, decided to stick it in a big pot, and it grew and it grew and it grew. I got 20 yummy potatoes from that :yess:

 

Nice one Pixie

Found the piece I was thinking of,

Late Blight Disease on Home Garden Tomatoes

Its to do with Zoospores overwintering on un frozen plant debris and forming much more resistant Oospores which have the potential to reproduce and make more virulent strains of the blight.

Very much like MRSA is resistant to antibiotics, imagine a fungicide resistant Potato Blight:OUCH: