[tip] Keeping potatoes firm and non sprouting

[Homestyle]

Keeping potatoes firm and non sprouting

Store the bag of potatoes in cool (not cold) dark ventilated area and put an apple in with the potatoes. The potatoes will keep for weeks without sprouting or going soft. The gas emitted from the apple is what preserves the potatoes. I've been doing this and it works!

 

[It'sJustMe]

Homestyle,
Thank you for posting this great tip! We're actually going tomorrow to get potatoes and onions for the root cellar and I will throw an apple in the bag or box. Another trick I learned last time was to leave the potatoes outside to thoroughly chill on a cold night or two before you store them inside in that cool place. Otherwise trapped heat makes them sprout faster. It's Just Me

 

[Taz]

Ya know, I had heard that tip along time ago and couldn't remember what it was. Thank you for sharing that. Here in Florida just buying a decent potato is a challenge. Good Russet potatoes are over $1 a lb here. And one has to sort through the sacks to find a bag that doesn't already have 3 or 4 rotten ones. Thats one of the first things we are going to do when we get on the road and head north is get some decent potatos. The apples we get here are lousy too, but maybe they are good enuff to keep the potatos. Most my potatos don't sprout. They just rot!

Taz

 

[Cassie]

Homestyle,

Thanks for the tip. I have rotten luck with potatoes. I have heard that I shouldn't store onions and potatoes close to each other, but I have no other place to store them. They are in separate baskets, but in the same cupboard. I will definitely try the apple in with the potatoes, but will it affect the onions somehow?
Thanks for the tip.

Always grateful,
Cassie

 

[Cassie]

Homestyle -- it worked!!

I see that it has been nearly a month since I last posted to this thread. I did put an apple in my potato bin. Potatoes kept firm without sprouting, but the apple didn't fare as well. had to throw it out.

Cassie

 

[ExitMisery]

Thank you very much

 

[Wimpy]

Wimpy from Idaho

Well O Wimpy from Idaho here:

I don know everything about potatoes, but I have learned I will share. I am almost through digging them now out of my garden. I have gotten out about 800 lbs and have about another 400 to go. My favorite of course and the only one if you are an avid baked potato / mash potato lover. Russet Burbanks.
Course I also do about 200 lbs of red Pontiacs ( good for potato salad and frying)
Some varieties store better than others . For instance; The white russets will store a lot longer than the reds.
They like to be stored in a cool (ideal temp about 40 to 45)in a fairly high humidity. Onions like it cool and low humidity. That is why it is hard to store onions and potatoes together, for if the humidity is good for the pots it is bad for the onions and visa versa.
In too low of a humidity the potatoes will shrivel. In to high the onions will rot. Course we are not talking about onions but I would inject to you that some onions don’t store very well . For instance: Walla Walla sweets almost rott before you can get them home from the store ha. I find that the hotter the onion the better they store. My favorite is sweet spanish because it is sort of in-between
Back to Pots.: Real potato lovers like a white fluffy potato for their bakers. That is why the russet Burbank is so popular
South eastern Idaho has the ideal soil and weather conditions for the perfect Burbank baker(the best texture)
If you want to appreciate a good baked potato. Just break it open and eat it out of the skin with just a little salt and nothing else. If you like butter and sour cream then eat them separate but don spoil the potato by hiding the taste with them. ha. Well I’m half way serious anyway. However I do like a butter/sour cream substitute that I came up with . It tastes like butter and sour cream and has no calories hardly,

buy a 4 or 6 oz of plain yogurt and add one pk of butter buds and 1 tble of popcorn butter flavor oil and stir. ( one drop of yellow food coloring if you want it non_white) Years ago we used to buy our own cream and let it sour and then make sour cream butter out of it.(of course now we don eat that way and eat right) this yogurt stuff in surprisingly similar. Put it also on your vegetables and etc.

Any more questions about pots let me know > I just may know the answer , however I may not.

Wimpy

Ps. Other kinds of potatoes are usually bred for ones who don like potatoes. Ha.

O : what do i do with so many potatoes ? SHARE

 

[Cassie]

Wimpy, I am soooooo jealous. DH and I grew potatoes at my folks place several summers because the soil there is so sandy. There is nothing like homegrown potatoes. Simply delicious.

However, I don't know what I would do with 1200 pounds of potatoes. Do you know how many bushel that would be? Just to give me an idea of how many we are talking about here. We never weighed ours so I don't know how many we actually had.

There is something about growing potatoes that I find fascinating. And I love to eat them just about any ole way! Yum. Wish I lived closer to Idaho. Enjoy!!

Cassie

Thanks for the recipe!

 

[Wimpy]

thank you cassie

If would probably surprise you had you weighed the potatoes you grew . The weight adds up fast . Well imagine a regular burlap sack full weighing about 100 lbs.
Some of the best premium potatoes I have seen were raised in sandy soil. I guess they just have to fertilize them a little more heavily. However they come out of the soil very clean . I don know everything about pots. For instance; this year mine came out more knotty than usual. Some say they do that from growing too fast, some say; from wrong watering technique, ? who knows. I have a brother in law that is suppose to be a potato expert . He works for Jr. Simplot (Idahos potato king) but he is a little odd and acts like he don like to impart with imfo about potatoes. Ha . O well. Not everyone is llike you and me and others on this board (unselfish and sharing)

Sure nice talking with you Cassie. Yr friend Bob

Ps. Going above and read your post about receipts for Wimpy. Ha. I will have another potato hint up there.

 

[yellowsprings]

Bumping up potato tips from the archive! Enjoy!

 

[LilRose8]

Wimpy I have a potato question..........how can I grow potatoes if I can;t find pot sets? Everyone is sold out. I tried cutting up a potato that was sprouting and put it in the ground but they didn't come up.....sigh........any suggestions?

Oddly enough, my son brought home a potato from school years ago that he had painted black and had made something or other in a project at school..the thing eventually rotted and shriveled so I threw it in the garden. THAT one grew the most beautiful potatoes.........

 

[yellowsprings]

LilRose, Wimpy is no longer a member here but I will try to help with your question.

You can grow store bought potatoes but I believe they have some kind of sprout inhibitor sprayed on them. Have you tried looking in the phone book for feed stores or nurseries? I was out yesterday and saw them everywhere I went. I use my own potatoes left over from the previous year so I never buy any. It doesn't stop me from looking anyway!

 

[LilRose8]

LilRose, Wimpy is no longer a member here but I will try to help with your question.

You can grow store bought potatoes but I believe they have some kind of sprout inhibitor sprayed on them. Have you tried looking in the phone book for feed stores or nurseries? I was out yesterday and saw them everywhere I went. I use my own potatoes left over from the previous year so I never buy any. It doesn't stop me from looking anyway!

Thank you Yellowsprings! I finally looked up growing potatoes on Google and discovered I did everything wrong....I didn't let the cut up sprouting potato rest and dry for a few days and I planted them in soil that was too heavy and rich. So I guesst they just rotted.

It may be too late in the year but I am going to try some lighter soil and in a container. We have a long season here so maybe I will get lucky.
Thanks for responding.

 

[MissTina]

LilRose...I had planted mine some weeks back in the lowest part of my garden which also happens to have the most clay. I had worked some mulch and organic matter in really well before planting so I thought I'd be alright. (Seems know I know I needed sand.) Well after several disappointing weeks I went out to dig up my plantings (I too couldn't find ANY sets here anywhere either) and a little bit of green was shooting up. I've been watching it now for a week and they are growing but VERY slowly.
I'm going to try to get some sweet potato this week. I saw where you cut them in half (lengthwise) and set in some vermiculite and cover tightly with bag (green house effect) then once it starts sprouting, just like regular seeds take off and ventilate. Plant when it gets about an inch of growth.
I'm wondering also if I planted the original potatoes too deep. I'll have to go back and check on the sweet potato planting depth because I don't remember that.
I'd like gardeners experience with covering with soil/vs hay.

 

[LC]

If you have trouble finding seed potatoes locally you might try Ronniger's. They are online and also do a catalog. They have a lot of varieties and their quality has always been very good.

Potatoes can be planted up to about 90 days before last frost date. Late planted potatoes may not make as many or such large ones, but they will keep further into the winter if your storage conditions are less than perfect.

Happy growing and eating.
LC

 

[LilRose8]

Thank you so much LC...that site is exactly what I needed........maybe I will have some taters this year after all.