This morning on my garden rounds -- on a VERY hot pre-Earl day -- I discovered that one of my less-developed potato plants had wee green tomatoes growing from it! Now most gardeners know that potatoes and tomatoes are related, both from the nightshade family, but the discovery was still unexpected. This is what I learned from my google search, and indeed as mentioned, the potato plant originated from Yukon Gold seed. The potatoes on this plant were quite small, where the plants around it had grown lovely medium-sized potatoes.
Richard Jauron, Department of Horticulture, says:
Occasionally gardeners are surprised to find small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on their potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety 'Yukon Gold' produces fruit more heavily than most varieties.
The potato fruit are of no value to the gardener. Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine. Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid. The small fruit should not be eaten. Since potatoes don't come true from seed, no effort should be made to save the seed.
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