A potato can look flawless on the outside, only to reveal a strange empty pocket when the knife reaches the middle. Gardeners call this condition hollow heart, and it can turn a perfectly ordinary spud into a potato with what looks suspiciously like a tiny underground cave. The good news is that the hollow spot usually does not mean the potato has a disease or has gone bad.
Hollow heart usually develops because the tuber experiences a sudden change in its growing conditions, especially when soil moisture swings from too little to too much. Rapid tuber growth can pull the developing tissues apart in the center, leaving an irregular cavity that may look star-shaped, angular, or surrounded by slightly brown tissue. Once the cause makes sense, the mystery becomes much less mysterious, and a few changes in watering and fertilizing can reduce the odds of seeing those potato caverns again.
