My potato plant has teeny "tomatoes" on it. Can I eat them?

Question

My potato plant has teeny "tomatoes" on it. Can I eat them?

Answer 1

NO!!! Those are quite poisonous.

They are known as seed balls and potato breeders use them to develop new varieties. If you extract the seeds from the seed ball and plant them you will have hundreds of varieties of potatoes. Most will probably be inedible (not poisonous but bad tasting or bad texture) but a few likely will be good to eat and you would want to save tubers from thos to replant next season to start a new potato breed.

Answer 2

The potato fruits have no value to the gardener.

Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine.

Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid.

So these fruits should not be eaten!

Learn more about the potato plant at:

http://www.potato2008.org/en/potato/inde...

Learn more about solanine at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine