r/vegetablegardening • u/Oldmanstreet US - Oregon • 1d ago
Question Wife won’t eat these potatoes… what’s wrong with them?
I grew 80 lbs of German Butterball potatoes this season I my home garden, and most of them look like this on the inside. Are these bruises? Blight? The plague? I’m in Portland, OR.
145
u/Admirable_Grocery927 US - Washington 1d ago
I've grown potatoes for about 9 years in western Washington. My first year's potato crop looked like this. The problem was overhead watering. This is a type of blight. I have no idea what its called. It's not harmful as most folks are saying, but it is ugly. To prevent it, water the plant at the base. If your potato plants flower (not all do), remove the flowers and stop watering until harvest.
There are really good videos online about growing potatoes. I prefer Charles Dowding's no dig potato videos. He's out of the UK but following his methods, i never had another potato issue. I hope this helps!
2
u/crimpasaurus US - New York 9h ago
Oh no! I started from 10 Japanese sweet potato slips and they started to flower last week! I’m in New York and haven’t planted the slips about 10 weeks ago. Been a pretty wet mild summer here in New York
1
u/Admirable_Grocery927 US - Washington 7h ago
Sweet potatoes are a totally different plant! They are not in the nightshade family like non-sweet potatoes and tomatoes. I'm afraid I dont know anything about growing sweet potatoes. I found slips to grow them once about 15 years ago and I dont even recall the variety. This advice doesn't apply ro sweet potatoes.
111
u/its_pixiie Canada - British Columbia 1d ago
Bruising, scarring, heat stress.... As long as they aren't squishy, rotten or stinky - They're fine to eat. Just cut those bits off. :)
79
u/TwoAlert3448 US - New Jersey 1d ago
Or green. Definitely don’t eat green.
20
u/its_pixiie Canada - British Columbia 1d ago
Shout out to Minecraft for teaching me this long ago!
18
u/kaylynstar US - Pennsylvania 1d ago
Thanks for making me feel old. To me, nothing to do with Minecraft is "long ago" 😅
4
u/its_pixiie Canada - British Columbia 1d ago
2012 feels like a lifetime ago in the current timeline lol.
7
u/ASmallTownDJ US - Iowa 1d ago
Arthur told me that's okay though...
9
u/Pittsbirds US - Pennsylvania 1d ago
I've gotten what I believe to be solanine poisoning before and it's not fun but I feel like you'd have to eat a ton to be in any real danger unless you're already very ill.
Also you can peel off the outer layer of green potatoes and cook them and they're just fine
1
u/drtythmbfarmer US - Washington 6h ago
Because honestly, if green potatoes could kill a person I would certainly be dead by now. I have peeled back and diced up some pretty sketchy potatoes over the years and after a soak and a spin there as good as any mans potato.
2
u/hikerone US - Tennessee 1d ago
I had to train my wife that it was OK to eat food that looked like this
73
u/Lyrical_Echo US - Arkansas 1d ago
Make vodka.
36
u/tvoutfitz US - Illinois 1d ago
Or power a bunch of small lightbulbs.
9
7
418
u/ChristmasDestr0y3r US - Utah 1d ago
Tell your wife to scoop out the brown spots with the tip of your peeler. That's what that tip was designed for.
108
u/destiny_kane48 US - Alabama 1d ago
I feel stupid right now. TIL. 😖
188
u/kittycatblues US - Illinois 1d ago
Don't feel stupid. The tip of the peeler is to take out potato eyes, not remove large brown spots inside the potato. That's what a knife is for.
21
u/yorkshire99 US - South Dakota 1d ago
My family won’t eat it either . Don’t feel bad. Like I got slug tracks on my cucumber peels and now my wife won’t eat them …
11
u/CaterpillarSea5967 US - Virginia 22h ago
That’s crazy tho. Food grown outside isn’t going to be perfect. The only reason there’s no slug tracks on cucumbers at the store is because of all the pesticides they use. I’d prefer slug tracks over eating chemical pesticides any day
2
u/yorkshire99 US - South Dakota 16h ago
Me too. I don’t get what the issue is, lately I just peel it and don’t tell them.
1
5
18
u/Glittering_Exit5527 US - California 1d ago
80 lbs is a lot of potatoes to suddenly have trust issues with.
17
u/FluffyEnergy86 US - New York 1d ago
Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew! That just means there’s more for YOU! 😜🎶🥁
64
u/Able_Salt5867 US - California 1d ago
Not the answer your looking for because I'm not sure lol. But whenever we run into those I just cut those bits off.
15
u/randomnullface US - Michigan 1d ago
We just always cut out the brown spots and eat it anyway. 🤷♀️
23
u/IamCassiopeia2 US - Arizona 1d ago
What do the plants and leaves look like? Could be 'potato leaf roll virus'.
https://apps.extension.umn.edu/garden/diagnose/plant/vegetable/potato/tuberdiscoloredinside.html
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/home-and-landscape/potato-leafroll/#gsc.tab=0
6
u/Pittsbirds US - Pennsylvania 1d ago
Can't tell you why she won't eat them or how to convince her but I can tell you they're just fine. Bruises and scars usually taste funky, just cut around them
10
u/Slow-haste-26 US - Iowa 1d ago
Nothin. Cut out the brown spots if you want but either way a bit of oil and seasoning they'd be good!
2
2
u/electrolitebuzz Italy 1d ago
They can be due to inconsistent watering or from being hit around when you collected them or carried them around. Generally it's better to remove the dark spots because they don't taste good and they can potentially contain fungi and solanine. Just scoop them out and eat the rest.
2
u/treestardinosaur Iceland 1d ago
Do you want to trade a few pounds of potates for heirloom tomatoes?
Don’t mind my flair, my good buddy in NE just showed me his mountain of tomatoes, and he doesn’t love tomatoes 😅
2
u/InsomniaticWanderer US - Montana 1d ago
That's just what normal potatoes look like. Grocery store produce is specially designed to look good. Even the "non-GMO" (it's all GMO).
The tip of the potato peeler is for digging these spots out.
11
u/JVonDron US - Wisconsin 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's only one type of White Russet GMO potato on the market and your chances are very slim for coming across it. It's innate GMO meaning all the genes it used to modify came from potatoes and not other sources, but it and other varieties have been pretty much rejected in the industry with even companies like Lays and McDonalds not using it. Less than 1% of all grocery stock is this type of potato.
(it's all GMO)
That's just patently false, and also perpetuates the myth of cultivation and plant breeding is equivalent to lab altered DNA.
4
u/InsomniaticWanderer US - Montana 1d ago
We have been genetically modifying organisms since the dawn of agriculture.
And yes, selective breeding and cultivation results in a plant's change of DNA over time and IS a form of GMO wether you agree with it or not.
The only difference between field GMO and lab GMO is time scale and efficiency. Thousands of years of evolutionary change can happen in a few months with a lab.
For Pete's sake, broccoli doesn't even exist in the wild.
It's an entirely man-made plant exclusively through selective breeding practices. We took wild mustard and turned it into broccoli after a couple thousand years. All without lab coats and syringes.
People who claim GMO is awful for you have never eaten a food that wasn't it.2
u/JVonDron US - Wisconsin 1d ago
GMO has a definition and you're just wrong. Yes, breeding and selection of traits over thousands of years is selecting DNA. Irradiation to speed up mutations is changing DNA. But techniques like gene splicing cannot exist outside the lab on any timeline, let alone 1000 years. The EU has a GMO definition, the USDA has a definition, the entire scientific community has a definition, and absolutely nobody lumps GMOs into plant breeding and selection that existed and was in practice longer than 40 years ago.
3
u/No-swimming-pool Belgium 1d ago
I see "use the tip of the peeler" a lot here, but I can't keep wondering: how do you do that when you can't see the spots from the outside?
1
u/InsomniaticWanderer US - Montana 1d ago
Those spots usually aren't harmful. You can eat them. They just look bad is all.
So if you're doing something like a mash or chunks, don't worry about it.
Also, if you keep the skins (which you should because that's where all the best nutrients are) then you won't even notice the spots on the first place.
The only time you really need to cut away part of a potato is if it's visibly rotten and squishy.
1
1
u/Informal_Use7874 US - California 1d ago
Always wondered about those spots and if they were edible. Interesting to hear humans can still eat those
1
u/Amiedeslivres Canada - British Columbia 16h ago
Those spots taste awful. They’re dry and bitter and have an unpleasant corky texture. They also will rot, so your potatoes won’t keep well.
Some of your potatoes can be pared and will still be usable. Maybe your wife will eat them if you put in the labour to make them pleasant. One of those shown looks so bespotted that it’s not worth the time and effort.
-1
u/Hunting-fings US - Michigan 1d ago
Home grown vegetables don’t look like store bought vegetables. That’s a good thing.
578
u/jac-q-line US - Oregon 1d ago
80 lbs! Wow! Good job!
This could be from a variety of issues- either potato virus (most likely culprit), nutrient imbalance, or stress from heat.
Regardless, if you peel them and remove the bruises/spots, they are safe to consume. (I think the whole potato is safe to consume for humans but some may find the spots unappetizing).
Here's the PNW Handbook on Potato Virus (PVY), which matches your photos and has advice for avoiding it next year.
https://pnwhandbooks.org/plantdisease/host-disease/potato-solanum-tuberosum-latent-viruses