Storing potatoes

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

They sure smell awful when they've gone bad.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.