Topic: shooting potatoes!

[peanuts]

Chatting to a farmer in the village this morning, I was warned - his main and mid-crop potatoes are shooting in the ground, even though the tops have dies down.  I hadn't thought of looking at those yet, as we are working through what has been a really good crop of early ones - Belle de Fontenay. 
We've now lifted all the mid-seasoned-skinned crop and yes, at least a third of really good-sized potatoes are shooting, green healthy, annoying shoots! 
Should I break them off do you think, and store them as usual, keeping a regular eye on them?  i'm hoping they will keep reasonably.  We'll just have to eat more potatoes quickly!

[galina]

I imagined something entirely different from the subject line 

How very strange.  They clearly thought that the growing cycle was over and the next starting.  Lifting the rest of your second earlies fast.  If blight wasn't such a problem, I'd suggest planting some with the bigger shoots for new potatoes late in the year. 

I think you can pinch off the new shoots, then let the' wounds' on the potatoes dry out completely, before storing.  I would not leave the shoots on, because in storage they might want to grow further and take away from the potato tuber.   

[peanuts]

Yes, I suppose I could have been talking about a coconut shy, using potatoes!
I agree, thank you, about rubbing off the shoots, as i do with stored potatoes during the winter.  Weirdly they are green with very short leaves, even though they were underground.  I'm drying them off for a day, then will go over them and take them off.  It's by no means all of them, about a third I should think.  Why not the rest?!