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My Garden » Forums » General Gardening » Fruit and Vegetables » Potato 'berries'
Last post 01-07-2008 9:38 PM by sue1002. 11 replies.
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Hello Kevin, The "berries" you describe are the fruits of the potato plant, they are highly toxic if eaten, and they do no good at all, the forming of the fruits takes the plants energy away from the tuber formation. The flowers can be taken off the plant as soon as they are seen. They are a pointless part of the plant that does no good at all, what you can do is remove the fruits and any subsequent flowers before they form fruits and you should get better quality tubers because of it.
After you giving me that advice a couple of years ago digger, I have been round the spuds religiously picking off the flowers as soon as I see them forming. Earlier on today OH remarked that "the potatoes are flowering" - he found one I missed and I soon nipped it off, he gave me a funny look and then I explained why and answered with "well you know more about gardening than I do."
I have been gardening for many years also, and have never heard of removing the flowers from potatoes. This is going to be an interesting talking point in our gardening club meeting next week. In fact there are a few flowers on my potatoes at the moment, which will be removed pronto.
Digger,
Many thanks for that - I shall go off with my secateurs at once ! I have grown potatoes for only a couple of years since moving to a house with a decent-sized garden but have not seen these fruits before. My wife, of course, was right when she said they would drain goodness away from the tubers.
Thanks again.
PS Now in Somerset but originally from Lancashire myself - Oldham.
The research evidence is that there is a slight gain in yield by removing potato flowers. However modern potatoes are bred to have very few flowers (for this very reason) so the gain is neglible, but it does exist. By the time you see the berries most of the very small yield penalty has been incurred.
Boggy
Hi all, yes the loss will be small and i suppose it does rather depand on the variety being grown and also whether you have any small children in the vicinity who may try and eat the fruits? I was told by an exhibition grower about removing the flowers many years ago and now it's just a habit I have of removing the flowers before they open, Like with sweet peas I now always remove the tendrils whether they are for the showbench or just for the garden.
Is that to stop the tendrils wrapping themselves around the sweet pea stems? I picked quite a few today that were twisted and bent over that had tendrils wrapped around the middle of the stem, they still give off a nice scent in a vase indoors though.
Yes the tendrils get in the way and will pull a stem and create a bend, and i think they look better without tendrils, although removing tendrils is work and does create more work because the main stem has to be tied in.
I think I will put leave the tendrils on there and put up with the few odd bent stems.
You are probably right to do so mate, it's only because I have nothing better to do with my time that i spend half the morning walking around looking for tendrils to snip
Haha digger, and I spend most of my time looking for and pulling out weeds...
