Storing potatoes

When potatoes started to sprout I cook a panful, mash and freeze in spread/butter containers. I then have a ready supply to use. Alternatively, roast and freeze.

Mud, Severnside. Supermarket potatoes are washed to make them more attractive to buyers. They get bashed about when they are harvested, bashed again in the washer, and packed when they are still damp.

Why is it that shop bought carrots and potatoes go soft within days of buying them.
Years ago my father used to dig his carrots and potatoes late in the autumn, store them in a sack in the garage and we were using them right through till spring

I have a sack of potatoes in the outside toilet. the sac is made of paper and I bring in I1/3 a bucket at a time and these go in the bottom box in the fridge which is for the salad goods. the potatoes are fine. Chilled and and in the dark all the time.

Don’t put apples in with potatoes, they give off ethylene gas which ‘ripens’. Also, don’t keep raw potatoes in the fridge, the cold turns the starches into sugars. However, keeping cooked potatoes in the fridge or freezer turns the starches into resistant starch which is better for gut health and reduces the calorific value. Does the same for bread.
You could buy a bag of peat and keep them in that, somewhere cool.

MayBee70, it's just that some of the starch converts to sugar, changing their taste (so I prefer the garage - but mine's unheated, on the north side of the house.)

I think mine keep well as they're from the farm - so haven't been size sorted, cleaned or kept in a heated shop - or mucked about with at all.

You shouldn’t keep potatoes in the fridge. Something to do with the sugar content or starch. They do keep well in it, though!

Mine ate in the bottom drawer of the fridge with a couple of sachets of silica gel that you sometimes get in parcels and those bits of absorbent paper things that are in the packets of fruit. Can't get carrots to keep mind so I prep and freeze them some diced some sliced and some in sticks.

Oh they do. And rotten carrots, too! What amazes me are the bags of organic carrots we buy that last for ages. I know it’s wrong to buy vegetables in plastic bags but they stay fresh for ages in the fridge. However, it crossed my mind that it’s because they’re organic not that they’re in a bag.

They sure smell awful when they've gone bad.

Thank you jillybird. Hulahoop. And maybe 70for your replies, very helpful. Have a nice christmas

Conan

Hello this is my first posting and I am fairly new to my tablet. It is in the wrong thread I know but I have a question I am on my own for Christmas so just bought a chicken yesterday, tomorrow I will cook it. But I see the use by date is te 28th would anyone keep it this long before cooking it. I googled it an d it said use within two days?

That’s why it’s important to have a fridge thermometer. I found that the cream I bough from the milkman kept going off until I realised that it had to be kept below 4 degrees and my fridge had gone up to 5.

I get them straight from the farm, covered in mud in a brown paper sack (so they're nice and fresh to begin with).

The sack goes on the garage floor (very cold in there, but frost free) so they're in a cool dark place.

I take just what I need into the kitchen.

If any go wrinkled - I just plant them.

Never a problem!

My way is foolproof: wrap each individual potato in Egyptian cotton (the higher the thread count the better), 3 layers are better than one or two; then keep in a dark, unheated garage or outhouse, and then most importantly, make sure that each potato is at least 2 metres away from it's nearest neighbour - in that why, although they have eyes, and can therefore see, they do not have ears (they are not corn), and potatoes are so softly spoken that with that safe distance, they cannot hear when any of the other potatoes start talking about it being time to sprout (sprout as in putting out shoots, nothing to do with Brussels), so most of your spuds - that is short for (Christmas)s Puds - will stay nice and fresh for your roast dinner tomorrow. Happy Christmas all

If you cooking it tomorrow it should keep a few days
Portion of up and put in fridge or freeze some for stir fries.
If you go to forums you can find different topics which cover most things .welcome Conan .

Get some hay and put a layer or 2 in a brown paper bag with the potatoes in between and covered. I 've done this with the ones I harvested in summer and they are fine.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hi Conan. It should be ok. Just give it a good sniff to see if it smells ok

Out of all the messages one fact comes out, that the unwashed ones last better. I live on my own but bought a large paper sack of Marfona from a farm that had started to do veg box deliveries. They were brilliant .... I’m on my second bag since March, and they still haven’t sprouted.

Mine last for weeks. Keep loose in vegetable rack lying in very cold, dark pantry. Alternatively in frost free garage or shed. Lying separately on top of linen or cotton tea towel and covered by another tea towel. No plastic, no paper. Good luck.

Hello this is my first posting and I am fairly new to my tablet. It is in the wrong thread I know but I have a question I am on my own for Christmas so just bought a chicken yesterday, tomorrow I will cook it. But I see the use by date is te 28th would anyone keep it this long before cooking it. I googled it an d it said use within two days?

Red potatoes bought from Aldi keep well.

I have a cloth potato bag with a drawstring and I put them in it and hang on a hook in the garage. I live alone so don't use an awful lot.

We grow many kilos of potatoes. They usually last us until about March. We harvest them end July early August then store them unwashed in big paper animal feed sacs, making sure they do not have a plastic lining. They are then stored in a dark aireated place and bring in a few at a time.

Some of them sprout a little but they are fine to eat. Not many go rotten.

Our friends that we do the pigs with, went to the local potato growing area and bought a ton of end of season potatoes for very little money. The pigs eat cooked potatoes every day so this seemed a bargain.

The four of us spent three days sorting them, knocking off sprouts and chucking the rotten ways. patted ourselves on the back as job well done.

Three months later when we were ready to feed them to the new piglets they were a stinking heap!! A salutory tale! Not so much the money but all that hard work.

Unwashed potatoes with soil still on them works best but I keep mine in a sack in the garage which seems to work well. If they start to sprout I turn them into roast potatoes - parboil, half roast, cool quickly, freeze then take them out as needed and roast from frozen. Best roasties I have ever cooked.