Potato storage?

Will

Well-Known Member
I take mine straight out of the garden and allow them to dry off in the sun for a couple hours.

Then they go in cardboard boxes lined with straw and not allowed to touch. Stick them in a closet on the back side of the house that stays cool and is dark. I get some sprouts after a couple months but nothing rotten.
 

JonB

Halcyon member
wholly crap!
This is a lot of tator talk.
Sherburne County, where I grew up, has very sandy soil and is one of the few Minnesota Counties where Tators are the primary crop grown. My Great Grandpa had a large Tator farm, that's a looooooong story for another time. My home town (where I grew up) has a annual festival known as the Spud Fest. I've had my fill of Tators in years past. These days, even though I am a gardener, I don't grow 'em, I don't buy 'em, I don't eat 'em, and I don't store 'em.
NUFF SAID !
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
My wife likes her spuds mashed and with a lot of milk, to the point of being what I consider being "soupy". I like them stiffer, with plenty of salt and pepper and prefer the skins left on. But then, I eat the skins of baked potatoes and consider them the best part. We compromised for years. Now I'm trying to keep my weight in check so no spuds for me! Really stinks, but being able to move without breathing hard is worth it. Still, I'd love to sit down to a hot turkey sandwich with real gravy and a big pile of home made fries drowned in more gravy!!!
 

BBerguson

Official Pennsyltuckian
The washing mentioned might be the cause of short life. I bet your family didn't wash the potatoes until ready to cook them.
We had a lot of potatoes too when I was growing up. They were never washed and stored in our old stone walled cellar with a dirt floor. They were kept off the floor in burlap bags.The entire cellar was basically a root cellar. I wish I would have been thinking when we built our house, we would have a root cellar it if was...
 

BBerguson

Official Pennsyltuckian
My wife likes her spuds mashed and with a lot of milk, to the point of being what I consider being "soupy". I like them stiffer, with plenty of salt and pepper and prefer the skins left on. But then, I eat the skins of baked potatoes and consider them the best part. We compromised for years. Now I'm trying to keep my weight in check so no spuds for me! Really stinks, but being able to move without breathing hard is worth it. Still, I'd love to sit down to a hot turkey sandwich with real gravy and a big pile of home made fries drowned in more gravy!!!

Thread drift alert...

If you really want to keep your weight in check, cut out the wheat products. There is a good book called Wheat Belly written by a doctor. It’s well written and easy to read. He writes about a number of his patients in really bad condition that turned their lives around by stopping the wheat. Basically, the wheat we eat today is so gmo’d that our bodies can’t digest it properly. After reading it, I stopped eating any product with wheat and really trimmed down. I’m not a big guy or overweight but I really toned up and gained a lot of energy. Basically a no wheat diet, which is really hard to do btw , I love bread... But, I was eating lots of wheat products every meal, 3 or 4 times a day.

Something I noticed since I started eating wheat products again is that I get indigestion after eating it. Not terrible, but it’s there and only if I eat a big sandwich or a noodle dish like spaghetti or mac & cheese. I’m convinced it’s the wheat.

I’m with you on the hot turkey sandwich Brett, oh man am I with you! We have a diner in the town I work in that serves an awesome chicken & biscuit lunch with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I order it with two scoops of mp’s and skip the biscuit. Welp, I know where I’m going for lunch when I get back to work in two weeks! :)

As long as I’m thread drifting, Five Guys have probably the best french fries of any fast food restaurant I’ve ever been to. Hate their burgers but love their fries!

Back to potatoes... We always planted two large gardens with a large potato section. Spent a lot of my youth in those gardens.
 

Chris

Well-Known Member
We grow a lot of potatoes here. What I keep for my family I store in a root cellar in a bin and burlap sacks. They are dry and unwashed and I afford good air circulation.

The potatoes go into storage in late October and the room is around 45-50 degrees which lets the cuts and bruises on the tubers heal. Remember, these things are alive and respire, heal, and convert sugars to starch.

After a few weeks the temperatures drop to 40, and eventually to 35 degrees. There is relatively high humidity which keeps tubers from shriveling.

Some varieties of potatoes sprout sooner than others so you have no control over that. I grow varieties that hold dormancy well. We don't see sprouting until May and can eat them until June. Sprouted potatoes make the best potato salad.

Bottom line: keep them dry, dark, air circulation (no plastic bags) and around 35-40 degrees. Don't store them with apples, onions, fruit as they produce ethylene which makes the taters sprout. Mainly keep them cold, though.
 

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
Sorry, little more potato talk before we drift over to carrots....

I have just flat given up in my attempts to store potatoes for more than about a week. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I store them in a dark, cool place. In the bag, out of the bag, red potatoes, Russet potatoes, doesn't matter.
If I had to guess, it has more to do with the handling of the potato BEFORE you got it.
Because I'm not growing them myself, I don't have control over the product before I buy it.

SO - my solution is to simply BUY less.
I might run out of potatoes every now and then, but I'd rather go back to the store than throw 3/4 of them away.
 

L Ross

Well-Known Member
Sorry, little more potato talk before we drift over to carrots....

I have just flat given up in my attempts to store potatoes for more than about a week. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I store them in a dark, cool place. In the bag, out of the bag, red potatoes, Russet potatoes, doesn't matter.
If I had to guess, it has more to do with the handling of the potato BEFORE you got it.
Because I'm not growing them myself, I don't have control over the product before I buy it.

SO - my solution is to simply BUY less.
I might run out of potatoes every now and then, but I'd rather go back to the store than throw 3/4 of them away.
Throwing stuff away is an anathema to people like us.

John G anchors away with the carrot talk, and all good root vegetables from Alaska. Heck, I'm willing to delve into cabbage too.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Thread drift alert...

If you really want to keep your weight in check, cut out the wheat products. There is a good book called Wheat Belly written by a doctor. It’s well written and easy to read. He writes about a number of his patients in really bad condition that turned their lives around by stopping the wheat. Basically, the wheat we eat today is so gmo’d that our bodies can’t digest it properly. After reading it, I stopped eating any product with wheat and really trimmed down. I’m not a big guy or overweight but I really toned up and gained a lot of energy. Basically a no wheat diet, which is really hard to do btw , I love bread... But, I was eating lots of wheat products every meal, 3 or 4 times a day.

Something I noticed since I started eating wheat products again is that I get indigestion after eating it. Not terrible, but it’s there and only if I eat a big sandwich or a noodle dish like spaghetti or mac & cheese. I’m convinced it’s the wheat.

I’m with you on the hot turkey sandwich Brett, oh man am I with you! We have a diner in the town I work in that serves an awesome chicken & biscuit lunch with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I order it with two scoops of mp’s and skip the biscuit. Welp, I know where I’m going for lunch when I get back to work in two weeks! :)

As long as I’m thread drifting, Five Guys have probably the best french fries of any fast food restaurant I’ve ever been to. Hate their burgers but love their fries!

Back to potatoes... We always planted two large gardens with a large potato section. Spent a lot of my youth in those gardens.

I've been wanting a grain grinder and to do our own flours. Naturally, what I want is either unavailable of horribly expensive. Maybe after the whole "Plague" thing dies down. Sourcing wheat locally is hard, but mailing it in is expensive also. As it stands, I'm an Atkins guy, meat, eggs and cheese. I'm down about 60 lbs to 190ish. Goal is 175, but it's really hard to do in winter. I love bread and spuds and pasta. I love being able to breath and move more. Don't really miss sweets, except pie. Don't care about chocolate like some do at all. Sure do miss my oatmeal raisin cookies though!
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
We grow a lot of potatoes here. What I keep for my family I store in a root cellar in a bin and burlap sacks. They are dry and unwashed and I afford good air circulation.

The potatoes go into storage in late October and the room is around 45-50 degrees which lets the cuts and bruises on the tubers heal. Remember, these things are alive and respire, heal, and convert sugars to starch.

After a few weeks the temperatures drop to 40, and eventually to 35 degrees. There is relatively high humidity which keeps tubers from shriveling.

Some varieties of potatoes sprout sooner than others so you have no control over that. I grow varieties that hold dormancy well. We don't see sprouting until May and can eat them until June. Sprouted potatoes make the best potato salad.

Bottom line: keep them dry, dark, air circulation (no plastic bags) and around 35-40 degrees. Don't store them with apples, onions, fruit as they produce ethylene which makes the taters sprout. Mainly keep them cold, though.

Where'd you build the root cellar Chris? I want one but we have all west facing slopes here or it's too ledgy to dig. Our clay is awful for potatoes.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Throwing stuff away is an anathema to people like us.

John G anchors away with the carrot talk, and all good root vegetables from Alaska. Heck, I'm willing to delve into cabbage too.

FWIW, I read numerous recommendations that carrots could be stored successfully in damp sand or sawdust. Tried both, shriveled carrots in 2 months. What does work is leaving them in the ground and covering them deep with mulch, but you have to have fairly well drained ground. They taste a lot sweeter too.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I imagine that being under the bright lights of the grocery store around the clock before we buy them doesn't help the life of our spuds.
 

Chris

Well-Known Member
Where'd you build the root cellar Chris? I want one but we have all west facing slopes here or it's too ledgy to dig. Our clay is awful for potatoes.
We built an addition on the house and had the cement guys pour a room off the cellar. Has a 2" PVC vent to the outside. My wife can get to it from inside the house which is handy.

I also keep 6-8 bushel plus cabbage and carrots in a clamp in the near field. Put sacks on a pallet and cover deeply with soil (tractor bucket) and have a vent to the outside (potatoes generate heat). Dig them up in May and have fresh food for us, extended family, and community for a while. Very high quality produce, the sap runs out of them when cut. Put some rat poison in the bottom of the clamp, if the voles get in there won't be a carrot left.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Okay, I think I remember you starting an addition just as I was moving north. The slope behind your place would make for a nice site anyway. I'm sure Cynthia appreciates inside access so she can cook up a supper for her man! Next you'll be letting her wear shoes! What a guy! ;)

Good tip on the voles. I just lost my last still alive, unscrewed with apple tree out of the 15 obscenely expensive St Lawrence Nursery apple trees I put in 10 years back or so to field mice. Snow got deep enough they went right up past the hardware cloth shields and stripped the bark down to the wood! Hawks, owls, weasels, fox, coyotes, cats and all sorts of other predators around here and they can't do me the favor of eating the field mice...
 

Tom

Well-Known Member
the key to good mashed taters is to drain them well then put them back on the hot stove to drive out all the extra moisture you can.
then you whip them and add the flavors back in, the dried out tatoes will suck up the butter and milk and such.
Sounds like you have some Fresian (northern dutch, also known as saxon) background.
 

Tom

Well-Known Member
Many years ago, I grew my own potatoes. I had some red skins ( don't remember the variety) planted too close to the bintjes ( dutch yellow) and ended up with a red skinned yellow flesh potato. I called up the seed potato supplier and they had no idea what I was talking about. Anyhoo, they turned out to be the finest raw fried potatoes I've ever had. A few years later I started seeing them in the grocery stores. Not that I need to be accredited with that hybridization, but I think I was responsible for that. I don't normally like raw fried hashbrowns, but this turned out very good.