Seed from the fruit of potatoes can be planted, but will not be similar at all to the parent plant Can I plant seeds I saved from my potatoes last year?

Phyllis Pitcher, by email

Stefan says: You want to know if you can save money by growing your next crop from these seeds. Sadly, not. The tomato-like fruits on potatoes are fairly common. But unlike tomato fruits, those on potatoes are extremely poisonous. They do contain seeds and these will grow into plants – but not into potato plants at all similar to those from which the seeds originated.

The potatoes we grow in our gardens do not come true from seed – which is precisely the reason why they’re grown routinely from vegetative tubers – and this is the month to buy them. So called ‘varieties’ of potato; ‘Maris Piper’, ‘King Edward’ and so forth, are actually clones, genetically identical because they are

derived from a small part of the tissues of the parent plant.