Ya learn something every day!

Okay, here is another post about harvesting potatoes and this completed the job.  Stick with the post to the end as there is a twist to the story and I learned something that I didn't know.  Saturday morning, I assembled my potato digging crew (Russ & Benjamin) and we dug up the remaining 5 1/2 rows of potatoes.  Most of them were red potatoes, although I did plant half a row of white ones.  The red potatoes produced a better crop.

I dug at the base of the potato plant, Russ pulled the roots, shook the dirt off and pulled the potatoes off, while Benjamin looked around in the loosened soil for potatoes that broke loose from the roots.  We filled bucket after bucket with beautiful potatoes. 

The potato harvest

The job is done!  Here are are the harvesters posing with a shovel in front of the spot formerly occupied by potato plants.  I'll wait for a rain and then plant purple hull peas, butter beans and more green beans in the same spot.

Work is done!

These buckets contain the potato harvest from Saturday.  Benjamin and I dug an additional bucket the previous Saturday and we've been enjoying them.  We especially like homemade hash browns to eat alongside our fresh scrambled eggs.


Look at all the potatoes, Dad!

Here is another view where the harvesters are tilting the buckets to show the yield.  This was probably our best potato harvest ever.  I didn't take the time to weigh them, but it is a lot of spuds.


Loads of potatoes

Here's where it got interesting.  An additional job of Benjamin's was to gather the potato plants and go feed them to the cows.  As he was picking them up he said, "Dad, look, this potato plant has a tomato growing on it!"  That was something I had never seen before.  Odd.


A tomato on a potato plant?

I took it inside and cut it in half and it looks exactly like a cherry tomato that is still green.



What is this thing?

I Googled it and got a hit on a Purdue University horticulture website: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/pottoms.html

In summary, potato plants fruit and these green berries are the fruit!  They look like tomatoes since potatoes and tomatoes are in the nightshade family of plants.  Normally, you don't see them because it usually gets hot quickly.  We've had an unseasonably long and cool Spring (I'm not complaining) and those conditions promote fruiting in potatoes.  You can plant the seeds from the fruit and actually grow potatoes, but it is much easier to grow them by planting the potato where the new plants will sprout from the 'eyes.'

I'm glad that we didn't eat the "tomato-looking thing" on the potato plant.  I learned in the article that potato fruits are likely to be high in solanine, a substance that is toxic to humans, particularly children.  Potato fruits should not be eaten, no matter how much they look like tomatoes!

Ya learn something every day!!