What Do Potatoes Look Like

If you’re new to gardening or foraging, you might wonder what do potatoes look like as they grow. This visual guide will help you identify potato plants at every stage, from sprout to harvest, so you can confidently recognize them in your garden or in the wild.

Knowing exactly what your potato plants should look like is key to a successful harvest. It helps you care for them properly, avoid accidentally weeding them out, and identify any problems early on. Let’s start from the very beginning.

Potatoes have a distinct appearance that changes through their lifecycle. The plant above ground looks different from the edible tubers growing below the soil. Here’s a breakdown of their key features.

The Potato Plant Above Ground

When you plant a seed potato, the first thing you’ll see is the sprout emerging from the soil. This grows into a full plant.

Stems and Leaves: Potato plants have sturdy, slightly hairy stems. They are often green but can have purple or reddish tinges, especially near the joints.
Leaf Structure: The leaves are compound leaves. This means each leaf is made up of several smaller leaflets arranged in pairs along a central rib, with one single leaflet at the end. They are generally a vibrant green color.
Plant Shape: The plant is bushy and can grow between 1 to 2 feet tall, depending on the variety. It’s not a vine, but a clustered set of stems.

Potato Flowers and Fruits

Not all potato plants flower, but many do. This is a great identification clue.

Flower Appearance: Potato flowers are small and star-shaped. They can be white, pink, purple, or even blue. They have a distinctive yellow center (the stamens).
Toxic Berries: After flowering, some plants may produce small, green, tomato-like berries. These are poisonous and should not be eaten. Their presence is a clear sign you’re looking at a potato plant.

The Underground Tubers: The Actual Potatoes

The part we eat develops unseen on special underground stems called stolons.

Shape and Size: Potatoes come in many shapes—round, oval, oblong, or even knobby. Size varies from marble-sized new potatoes to large baking potatoes.
Skin Color and Texture: The skin can be tan, brown, red, yellow, purple, or even blue. It might be smooth, netted, or slightly flaky. All are normal!
Eyes: These are the most recognizable feature. “Eyes” are small dimples or indentions on the potato’s surface. They are actually buds from which new plants can grow. A sprouting eye looks like a small, pale bump or a short, growing shoot.

Identifying Different Potato Varieties

There are thousands of potato varieties, but they generally fall into a few visual categories based on their skin and flesh color.

Russet Potatoes

Russets are probably the most recognizable. They have a thick, netted brown skin and white flesh. They are typically large and oblong, perfect for baking.

Red Potatoes

These have a smooth, thin red skin and white, waxy flesh inside. They are often round or slightly oval. Their skin adds a nice pop of color to dishes.

Yellow Potatoes (like Yukon Gold)

Yellow potatoes have a thin, light tan or golden skin. Their flesh is a buttery yellow color all the way through, which is their defining trait.

Purple/Blue Potatoes

These are striking. They have deep purple or blue skin, and often the flesh is vividly colored as well, ranging from lavender to deep violet. The color can sometimes be splotchy.

Fingerling Potatoes

Fingerlings are small, narrow, and finger-shaped (hence the name). They can be any color—yellow, red, or purple—but their elongated shape makes them easy to spot.

Step-by-Step: How to Identify a Wild or Volunteer Potato Plant

Sometimes potatoes from a previous year sprout on their own. Here’s how to confirm it’s a potato.

Check the Leaf. Look for the compound leaf structure. No common garden weed has leaves exactly like a potato.
Look for Tubers. Gently dig around the base of the stem. You should find developing tubers attached by thin stems. They might still be very small.
Check for Flowers or Berries. The presence of the characteristic star-shaped flowers or small green berries is a dead giveaway.
Crush a Leaf. Gently crush a leaflet. A potato plant will often have a distinctive, somewhat pungent, green smell. It’s not pleasant like mint, but it is unique.

Common Look-Alikes to Avoid

It’s important to know what potatoes are not. Misidentification can be dangerous.

Tomato Plants: Tomato and potato plants are related and their leaves look somewhat similar. However, tomato plants have a more pronounced scent, often vine, and produce larger, edible fruits.
Horse Nettle or Nightshade: This is a toxic weed. Its leaves are similar but usually smaller and shinier. It has white flowers and produces yellow berries (not green like potato berries). All parts are poisonous.
Sweet Potato Vines: Sweet potatoes are not true potatoes. They are a member of the morning glory family. Their leaves are heart-shaped or lobed, and they grow as long vines, not bushy plants.

Visual Signs of Problems on Your Potatoes

Knowing what a healthy potato looks like helps you spot trouble.

Green Skin: If your potatoes have green patches under the skin, it means they’ve been exposed to light. This produces a bitter substance called solanine. You should peel away the green parts before eating.
Scabs or Sores: Rough, scabby patches on the skin are usually caused by a common soil bacterium. They affect appearance but the potato underneath is fine to eat once peeled.
Hollow Heart: Sometimes a large potato will have a hollow center. This is a growth issue, often from uneven watering, but the rest of the potato is still edible.
Pest Damage: Holes in the leaves are often from Colorado potato beetles. Their larvae are fat, red, and hump-backed. Check the undersides of leaves.

Harvesting Cues: What Ready Potatoes Look Like

You don’t have to guess when to harvest. The plant gives you visual signals.

For “new” or baby potatoes, you can harvest a few weeks after the plants have finished flowering. The tubers will be small, about the size of an egg, with very thin skin that rubs off easily.

For mature, storage potatoes, wait until the plant above ground completely dies back. The stems and leaves will turn yellow, then brown, and wither. This tells the plant has finished sending energy to the tubers, and their skins have “set” or thickened for storage.

FAQ: Your Potato Identification Questions Answered

Can you identify a potato by its flower color?

Flower color can hint at the tuber color, but it’s not always reliable. A white flower might produce a red potato, for example. It’s better to wait and see the actual tuber.

What does a potato seed look like?

True potato seeds are tiny, flat, and found inside the toxic green berries. They are not used by most home gardeners, who instead plant “seed potatoes,” which are just small tubers or pieces of tuber.

How can I tell if a potato is still good to plant?

A good seed potato is firm, not shriveled or rotten. It has several healthy-looking “eyes” that may already be starting to sprout. Avoid any that are soft, moldy, or excessively sprouted with long, pale shoots.

What does potato blight look like on the plant?

Early blight shows as dark, target-like rings on lower leaves. Late blight, more serious, causes rapidly spreading greasy-looking dark patches on leaves and stems, often with a white fungal growth underneath in wet weather.

Are potato leaves edible?

No. Unlike the tuber, the leaves, stems, and flowers of the potato plant contain toxic alkaloids and should never be eaten. This includes the green berries.

With this visual guide, you should now feel confident answering the question of what potatoes look like through their entire growth cycle. Paying attention to the details—the compound leaves, the distinctive flowers, and the unique tubers—will ensure you always know exactly what’s growing in your garden patch. Remember to check for those key features like the eyes and the plant structure if your ever unsure, and you’ll be a potato identification expert in no time.