Should You Remove Potato Flowers? Everything You Need to Know

If you’re growing potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) in your garden, you might be surprised to see them start to bloom. While we grow potatoes for their edible tubers that develop underground, it’s important for potato plants to mature above the surface, too.

Depending on the potato variety, potato flowers can come in a range of different colors and shapes. But should they be removed?

What Potato Flowers Look Like

Potatoes are a nightshade, a family of flowering plants that also includes plants like tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. Because of this, potato flowers have a similar shape to tomato or eggplant flowers.

Different potato varieties produce different flower types—some might be large and vivid, while others smaller and clustered. Potato flowers can be white, purple, pink, blue, or red, with anthers (the part of the stamen that contains pollen) that can be yellow, red, or dark purple. The blooms’ coloring can sometimes serve as clues to the possible colors of the skin and flesh of the potatoes growing underneath the soil.

Why Potatoes Produce Flowers

Flowering is a normal part of a potato plant’s lifecycle, and their presence indicate the plant is healthy and maturing properly. Generally, potato plants will start flowering a few weeks before the potatoes are ready to be harvested.

You should harvest baby potatoes (new potatoes) two to three weeks after they’ve finished flowering, and harvest potatoes for storing (mature potatoes) two to three weeks after the plant’s foliage has died back.

Like other flowering plants, a potato plant produce blooms in order to reproduce. If pollinated, potato blossoms will grow small green fruits that resemble underripe cherry tomatoes. Each potato berry contains around 300 seeds that can technically be planted and used to grow more potato plants.

However, these green potato berries contain solanine, which is very toxic even in small amounts, and they should not be eaten. And most potatoes are grown from seed potatoes, a potato that has been grown to be replanted to produce a potato crop.

If your potato plants aren’t producing flowers, don’t fret. Potatoes don’t always bloom, and the flowers are not required to produce tubers. In fact, some potato varieties barely produce blooms at all—whether or not a potato plant flowers doesn’t affect the quality or quantity of the potatoes it produces.

What to Do When a Potato Plant Flowers

When you see your potato plant start to produce flowers, this is an indication that tubers are developing underground and will be reader to pull up from the ground soon. When you see them blooming, you can either prune them away or leave them be—your decision will depend on a number of different factors.

If you’re growing potatoes in an area that small children or pets can easily get to, it is wise to remove the potato flowers to prevent them from developing into toxic green potato berries. Removing the potato flowers might also help increase potato yield, as the energy the plant would normally send to produce fruits and seeds is redirected to forming the tubers below the ground.

However, removing potato flowers is an optional step. If their presence is non-threatening to children or pets, it’s perfectly fine to let your potato plants flower if you want to enjoy their vibrant blossoms.