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Storing Potatoes

  • 19-09-2020 8:03pm
    #1
    loco-colo
    Registered Users Posts: 155 ✭✭


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


Comments

  • #2
    jj880
    Registered Users Posts: 4,182 ✭✭✭jj880


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


  • #3
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 27,999 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • #4
    jj880
    Registered Users Posts: 4,182 ✭✭✭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.


  • #5
    loco-colo
    Registered Users Posts: 155 ✭✭loco-colo


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


  • #6
    Bill Hook
    Registered Users Posts: 113 ✭✭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.


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  • #7
    loco-colo
    Registered Users Posts: 155 ✭✭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.


  • #8
    loco-colo
    Registered Users Posts: 155 ✭✭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


  • #9
    jj880
    Registered Users Posts: 4,182 ✭✭✭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.


  • #10
    Funsterdelux
    Registered Users Posts: 3,376 ✭✭✭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.


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