Storing Potatoes

loco-colo

How do you store your potatoes and how long do they stay good - without sprouting? Thanks.

jj880

Cold room. Darker the better. Cover them. You might get 2 or 3 months before they start to sprout.

looksee

Store them in a room with no heating at all, preferably in a garage/shed etc and as jj880 says, in the dark. Not in plastic bags or containers.

jj880

Yes nothing air tight. Maybe a potato sack and something that blocks light completely stuffed in the opening of the sack. Light, heat and moisture are to be avoided.

loco-colo

Thanks. For some reason I thought you put them in dry compost or sawdust / sand - must be dreaming.

Bill Hook

I stored them in the shed last year stacked in the plastic vegetable boxes you get from supermarkets. I put two breeze blocks on their sides under the first box and stacked 6 of them on top: the potatoes were still good when they ran out in the middle of April.

loco-colo

Thanks Bill

I presume it is ok to leave them in the ground for as long as possible i.e. no frost - I wonder are they still developing after stalks have died / been removed.

loco-colo

loco-colo wrote: »

Thanks Bill

I presume it is ok to leave them in the ground for as long as possible i.e. no frost - I wonder are they still developing after stalks have died / been removed.

Sorry - Should have researched - just found this:

Generally speaking, storing potatoes in the ground is not the most recommended method, especially for any long term storage. Leaving the tubers in the ground under a heavy layer of dirt that may eventually become wet will most certainly create conditions that will either rot the potato or encourage sprouting

jj880

We sometimes cut the stalks and leave them in for 2 weeks max if we dont have storage space or time to dig them straight away. But yeah not a good idea to leave them in too long.

Funsterdelux

loco-colo wrote: »

Thanks Bill

I presume it is ok to leave them in the ground for as long as possible i.e. no frost - I wonder are they still developing after stalks have died / been removed.

Depends on where you are in the country, how wet ground is, how hard a frost.

I was able to leave them in the ground well into winter when I lived nearer the Cork coast, now Im further inland I'll be digging them all up.

My father used to store them in a pit outside.

Dig them, clean then cover in straw with a layer of soil on top and plastic to keep water off.

But I think he stopped that after a few years, rats slugs etc.