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potatoes

Are these TPS seedlings? - eggplant? physalis?

Nancy Reading

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posted 4 months ago

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I spotted these 'weeds' in my bean bed.....It was my potato bed in 2023. I'm wondering if they are actual potato seedlings? Anyone grow TPS and can confirm?

poss_potato_seedlings.jpg

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Phil Stevens

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They could be seedlings. Or they could be teeny tiny tubers that you missed. I get the latter all the time, and sometimes they are in the ball bearing size range but still plenty to send up a shoot.

Nancy Reading

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Phil Stevens wrote:they could be teeny tiny tubers that you missed.

Maybe, but I don't remember getting volunteers last year (when it was a grains bed)

I'm very excited (too excited probably!) to think that the potatoes may be seeding around....I did get quite a few potato 'apple' fruits.

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Joseph Lofthouse

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They look like potato seedlings to me. And healthy!!!

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Nancy Reading

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On the other hand I don't really want potatoes growing in my bean bed! I wonder whether to try and transplant them before they get too big?

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Joshua States

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posted 4 months ago

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As you know I am at best an intermediate gardener. I did find this thread on Potato companions right here on Permies, and it says that beans and potatoes are good companion plants.
Asking the oracle of the Interwebs about it also confirmed that these are good companion plants.

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Nancy Reading

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Joshua States wrote: it says that beans and potatoes are good companion plants.

Well that's good enough for me! They stay and I'll keep you all informed as to how they turn out!

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Phil Stevens

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I can report that broad beans and potatoes are coexisting very happily in one of my gardens at this very moment, and they're all self-planted. Any day now a sharp frost might spell the end of the spuds, but favas love winter here so they'll keep growing.

Joshua States

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I would love to companion plant with my potatoes, but I grow spuds in pots outdoors, and the forest denizens would probably eat anything on that list.
I don't know if the deer and elk like potato greens, so I hung some deterrent on the pots.

All-pots.JPG

Nina Surya

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Because potatoe greens are toxic and animals are generally wise, I thought my potatoe field would be safe from the little flock of ouessant sheep I brought in last year June.
My potatoe harvest last year failed miserably, because the sheep mowed the greens down.
Maybe they used it as a detox boost?? They didn't show the slightest sign of discomfort.
This year the sheep and potatoes separated by a fence that the sheep are testing nearly daily.

This years potatoe plants are now flowering and I hope I can save some TPS later - for the first time!

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Phil Stevens

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Nina Surya wrote:Because potatoe greens are toxic and animals are generally wise, I thought my potatoe field would be safe from the little flock of ouessant sheep I brought in last year June.
My potatoe harvest last year failed miserably, because the sheep mowed the greens down.
Maybe they used it as a detox boost?? They didn't show the slightest sign of discomfort.
This year the sheep and potatoes separated by a fence that the sheep are testing nearly daily.

This years potatoe plants are now flowering and I hope I can save some TPS later - for the first time!

My sheep are doing the same sort of testing, and not too long ago a few of them squirmed under the fence into the aforementioned block (before the broad beans sprouted) and cropped all the potato tops to the ground. They also uprooted lots of tubers in the process and tried to eat those as well...I found several with bite marks.

On topic, I did grow out some seeds a few years back and they did well. I don't think I kept the tubers separate when I harvested them, so I don't know about how true they stayed to variety (pretty sure they were Nadine). I'll try again in the spring.

Nancy Reading

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posted 1 month ago

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I think these turned out to be aubergine plants!

- just as unexpected as potatoes, but less useful, as it is too cool here for an outside eggplant crop. We do often get aubergines that are too far gone for cooking and quite seedy go in our compost....

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Phil Stevens

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posted 1 month ago

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Not sure about eggplant ID...that looks suspiciously like a Physalis of some sort. Any flowers yet?

Nancy Reading

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posted 1 month ago

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Oh physalis is anther possibility! Thank you Phil.
I did have those growing in the polytunnel before. No flowers as yet. I haven't dug them up so we'll see if they reveal themselves yet!

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M Ljin

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posted 1 month ago

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Physalis is a good possibility. Here there are native perennial ground cherries that I love, Physalis heterophylla which is very cold hardy. They survived multiple freezing winters in an exposed pot as a volunteer before I planted them out in the garden and made excellent fruit! This year they didn’t get enough fertility to fruit but they spread, and there are other wild patches where I can gather them. They look similar to the plant pictured. But they are not likely to be the species.

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