| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| nettie |
Weird weird plants!Hi, some funny plants have grown up in a small patch of my allotment that I haven't sorted out yet.At first I thought they were potatoes, the leaves are the same, the flowers were the same, but now one of them has something similar to green tomatoes growing on it!! Any ideas, or do I have mutant spuds living there?? 
Also there is a much smaller version growing, looks like nightshade but the flowers are white with yellow middles. This also has weeny tomato like berries growing on it. There are loads of them! Any ideas? |
| nettie |
Right, I've done a few searches and I think the second one is black nightshade. Still have no idea on the first though! |
| Bernie66 |
Any chance of a picture Nettie, just to give us a chance? |
| Treacodactyl |
Potato flowers will set seed and can get little tomato shaped fruits. As far as I know these are poisonous and possibly highly so. I don't remember seeing many fruits since I been growing potatoes but when I was a nipper I remember seeing quite a few. |
| Treacodactyl |
A bit of googling comes up with this link (nice to see selfsufficientish with the first picture when I googled.  )
http://www.selfsufficientish.com/potatoes.htm |
| Bernie66 |
Have a look at these two, don't know if they will be any use at all
http://indianspringherbs.com/index.htm http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/namegal/msg0713303020640.html top one is a handy one anyway |
| nettie |
Thanks Treac, I've been trawling through Google myself, and came to the same conclusion. Apparently potato grown from seed is far less likely to carry any kind of disease. It's also eco friendly for farmers in places like india, as the seed obviously weighs far less than tons of seed potatoes. Apparently the yields are much higher too. I was going to copy and paste the article but it was huge, so here's the link instead:
http://www.new-agri.co.uk/02-6/focuson/focuson2.html |
| nettie |
Thanks bernie, our posts crossed!
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| Treacodactyl |
There's also a link in cabs growing spuds from seed post here: http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?t=5268
(Don't show these posts to Bugs, she'll be trying to grow them next year  )
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| cab |
Black nightshade, an imported solanaceae that thrives between spuds, is a common enough weed. Very likely you're right with that one. Toxic, but not so much that you can't weed it out 
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