Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: calamityjayneuk on August 04, 2007, 21:28:54
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I'm chuffed to bits after lifting my Duke of york potatoes today and getting a great big bucket load from only 10 plants - much better than last year, when I got about 5 tiny potatoes.
So now I need to know how to go about storing them. For now I've put them into a wooden box I inherited on the lottie and covered with newspaper, putting in the coolest bit of the shed.
I have a cool cupboard under the stairs, would that be ok?
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A cool cupboard under the stairs is fine.
I get those papar sacks the potatoes come in from my local chippy,they only through them away.
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Leave your spuds out to dry for a few hours. I left mine for 2 days as the weather was good enough. It helps prevent them rotting. Hessian sacks are good for storing spuds too.
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OH is complaining as she is tripping over drying spuds all round the house!
::)
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hi leave potatoes to dry out for day or two. Find using papersacks from fish shop is good for storing. just ask they only throw them away
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Can you still store potatoes if they've got slug holes in them or will they rot?
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If they have dried they will store but are prone to other rots... best to use them up first... cook them off in meals that can be frozen...
;D
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Thanks Saddad :)
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Not having a source of hessian or paper sacks, I am storing mine in cardboard boxes piled on top of each other. The main thing is to excude light but allow air to move in and out.
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Get round to your local chippy... mine were willing to give me a dozen paper sacks a day... every day... only disappointed when I didn't want any more!
;D
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Good idea - ours is only a few doors down the street. I do find stacking cardboard boxes very compact and convenient, though.... Is there any reason sacks would be better?
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Boxes are fine too...
;D
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This year, mine are in several separate Homebase brown paper bags inside a string bag hanging in the garage away from the direct light from the only window. Sounds as if I need to give the a bit more protection from the light?
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Light exclusion is a must, otherwise your spuds will all end up going green.
We kept our first harvest of Bambino and Kestrel in the large salad drawer at the bottom of the big fridge,(dark and cold) and have just yesterday finished them 8 weeks on. Only one of them had gone partly green in this time. Not suitable for a large harvest obviously, but on this occasion I had only dug about 20 lbs., which fitted in there comfortably.
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Normally when I dig up the potatoes I wash them, divide them into ones for now, ones for later and ones to chuck. Then I leave them to dry for a couple of days before storing them in paper sacks.
Yesterday one of our plot holders told me you shouldn't wash them as it encourages mould. Does it, or are they OK like that given that they get thoroughly dried before they go in the sacks?
I'm between a rock and a hardplace as far as storage is concerned. If I put them in the shed the mice and eventually the frost get them. If I put them in the cupboard under the stairs which is nice and dark but relatively warm they start sprouting after a bit.
Oh well my own fault for planting too many.
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Just to let you all know, you can get hessian sacks from www.dobies.co.uk my grandfather got his seeds from them (before the internet) lol. They sell them in packs of 10.
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We store them in hessian sacks in the garage, but check them from time to time for bad bits. We got our original sacks from Marshalls, I think, then got more from the potato fair at 50p each. This year we are running out of space, we have three full sacks already, and 30 plants still to dig up!
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The sacks are not the problem - I have loads. I use the paper ones rather than hessian because I hate the smell of the hessian ones. My problem is to do with how the potatoes are prepared for storage rather than in what.
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Yes, they need to be well dried. We don't wash them, my son is the potato man, and he always manages to dig them up on a fine hot sunny day, spreads them out on the patio in the sun. I found two huge wire trays at the dump a couple of years ago, and they are invaluable for drying spuds, onions, garlic etc (tho the small ones slip through). That way we can take them in at night and put them out again the next day. Lucky we have a south-facing patio. They are never caked in mud, and we just rinse them and cook them.
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The shed's the best place... get a mouse trap... I dispose of 30+ a year... :-X
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Hi grawrc
I have the same problem as you - all my storage is too warm. But I read in Bob Flowerdew's organic bible that he uses dead fridges and freezers for storage. Seems like an interesting idea, I was thinking I might look on freecycle for one.
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Should you store potatoes that have a little scab on the skins?
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Yes, they're OK.