Guidelines for Storing Potatoes

• Potatoes need to be stored somewhere cool and dark. Any light will cause the potatoes to go green and a green potato is a toxic one, so this point is vital.
• They need to be stored in brown paper sacks, wooden crates, or cardboard boxes. Polythene anything won’t be very successful due to the ease with which condensation can build up and cause mold and rot to set in and spoil them all.
• When you’ve harvested your potatoes, leave them in a cool dark place for 2-3 days. This will help the skins mature and protect them a little better throughout the storage period.
• Don’t rinse the potatoes before you store them. Even if you dry them as well as you can, there will always remain little pockets of moisture that can start up the mildew process, and allow bacteria in.
• As you place each potato into storage, examine each one. Do not store any that are sprouting, green, that have any soft patches, or damage from harvesting etc. Either throw them out or use what you can.
• It’s important that the air can circulate to as much of the potato as possible. Some people hang them up in old pairs of tights or pantyhose. The method is very good at allowing the air to circulate.
• Like a lot of plants, potatoes will enter a period of dormancy. This is the process they enter prior to sprouting, and obviously you want to delay this for as long as possible.There has been quite a lot of research into this topic and the findings suggest that if you storing potatoes at a temperature of 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit, will encourage the longest length of dormancy. A temperature any warmer than this will cause the potatoes to sprout much more quickly.
• It’s never a good idea to store potatoes in the fridge, despite this being a cool and dark place;(the light doesn’t stay on when the door’s shut!) The temperature is too cold and will turn the starch into sugar which will make the potatoes taste sweet when you cook them and they will go dark.
• Do not store potatoes with onions, or next to fruit. They produce hormones and gasses which will spoil both crops.
• When stored properly, potatoes can last 3-6 months. It’s important to check them periodically and remove any suspect characters that have gone brown, green or shrivelled, before they spoil the rest.

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