Potato question!

[Sally PB]

Yes! Even if they had a blemish or looked like a bug started to nibble, if firm then peel, cut out any spots/eyes, and enjoy! Sometimes there can be a hollow cavity inside a potato-maybe too much rain at one point. But, those are fine to eat. So, black and brown or mush on a potato are the things to remove or to toss the whole thing if too much is impacted.

This, exactly. I have one variety, Elba, that gets the hollow cavity issue after a lot of rain. They are huge tubers, so I do get a lot of potato out of them.

For longer term storage, this is what I do:

Dig the potatoes. Put any that I nick with the shovel in a separate pile. DO NOT WASH THE DIRT OFF THEM, unless you're going to eat them right away.

I put them on these tables on the porch:

That's my garlic, but it's the same set up. The tops of the tables are wire mesh, so there is good airflow above and below. Cover the potatoes with a sheet or other breathable material to keep them out of sunlight. This lets the skin toughen and cure.

In a few days, the dirt on them will be dry and you can brush it off. I wear exfoliating gloves when I do this, and it works very well. I put any that were damaged in digging in a paper bag (again, breathable material that is opaque) in a cupboard to be used first. The rest go in a cardboard box in the basement.

They will eventually sprout; store potatoes are treated so that they don't. Mine last well into winter this way.

 

[aziegler17]

Mashed, roasted or fried! Those long ones would make great wedges! Mmm with some homemade ranch.

Also! Great job on growing your own taters!

I was very worried but it seems like these did really well for my small backyard garden! Going to do it again next year.

 

[aziegler17]

This, exactly. I have one variety, Elba, that gets the hollow cavity issue after a lot of rain. They are huge tubers, so I do get a lot of potato out of them.

For longer term storage, this is what I do:

Dig the potatoes. Put any that I nick with the shovel in a separate pile. DO NOT WASH THE DIRT OFF THEM, unless you're going to eat them right away.

I put them on these tables on the porch:
View attachment 3646501
That's my garlic, but it's the same set up. The tops of the tables are wire mesh, so there is good airflow above and below. Cover the potatoes with a sheet or other breathable material to keep them out of sunlight. This lets the skin toughen and cure.

In a few days, the dirt on them will be dry and you can brush it off. I wear exfoliating gloves when I do this, and it works very well. I put any that were damaged in digging in a paper bag (again, breathable material that is opaque) in a cupboard to be used first. The rest go in a cardboard box in the basement.

They will eventually sprout; store potatoes are treated so that they don't. Mine last well into winter this way.

Very informative. Thank you!

This was my first year so seeing I guess not perfect potatos caught me off guard vs store bought. Just wanted to make sure everything was good

 

[aziegler17]

Yes! Even if they had a blemish or looked like a bug started to nibble, if firm then peel, cut out any spots/eyes, and enjoy! Sometimes there can be a hollow cavity inside a potato-maybe too much rain at one point. But, those are fine to eat. So, black and brown or mush on a potato are the things to remove or to toss the whole thing if too much is impacted.

When a potato is growing, sometimes they break through the soil- cover them with dirt so they don’t develop green. If green, cut away the green part and don’t eat, but the non-green parts are safe.

These are going to be mashed potatos to go with some meatloaf!
I used a container growing method and was shocked how many I did end up with this way.

 

[aziegler17]

They look safe to me. I got a bunch this year that look pretty green. Might just toss em or experiment with planting them now to overwinter them for next season. But yeah, those look fine - maybe just slightly under developed?

It was my first time with potatos this year. So reading articles and watching videos on when to harvest I took a chance. About 95% of my foliage was dead or wilting. I only had 1 plant that seemed to still be quite green and firm. So I dumped them out and this is what we got. I guess next year I will wait maybe another week before harvesting.

 

[aziegler17]

On this note,
I had some Itty bitty potatos that came out of this crop and was curious if anyone knows if it's possible and how too turn them into seed potatos

 

[Krux5506]

Exposed to light. But the green indicates presence of a certain compound not good to eat.

None were anywhere near the surface exposed to light, but I probably harvested too early and they didn't fully mature. Luckily it's my least planted variety so I don't have much to get rid of. Overall my potato crop wasn't as good this year as it was in previous years. Definitely need to work more with amending my soil in this newer plot in my garden. I had a couple volunteer potatoes spring up in a bed where I buried some fish carcasses last fall during my fishing season and those grew exponentially better than any of the others.

 

[NatJ]

On this note,
I had some Itty bitty potatos that came out of this crop and was curious if anyone knows if it's possible and how too turn them into seed potatos

If they are very tiny (like the size of a pea or a kernel of corn) they will not usually be good seed potatoes, because they just don't have enough potato to get the new plant off to a good start.

Ones about an inch across seem to work fine, and so do larger ones.

To use them for seed potatoes, you don't really have to do anything special. Just store them until planting time in the spring. It's best if they are cool but not frozen, so something like a cool cellar can be a good choice. If you have only a few, and no better storage places, you could store the seed potatoes in your refrigerator.

With large seed potatoes, people cut them into chunks so they grow many plants from one potato. With small seed potatoes, just plant them whole. Each potato needs at least one eye (the little dent that will grow a new plant), but they usually have plenty of those so you don't really have to think about it.

In some climates, you can grow a second crop of potatoes right after you harvest the first one. In some other climates you can plant potatoes in the fall, so they spend the winter in the ground and grow in the spring. (I have never grown potatoes in a climate where either of those methods works, but I have read a little bit about the idea.)

 

[nao57]

What you can do is sort the small ones from the big ones. Then you use the small ones for seed the next growing season. You can also expect that potatoes will sometimes look ugly and that its OK. But if you get black spots or spoiled parts you can cut those parts off without throwing the whole thing away, usually.

 

[nao57]

I was curious to ask what soil ratios you tried other variations of possibly some sand with the soil for growing potatoes also? And how they'd turn out? And what's the limit of how much sand you have to have to keep the potatoes from getting glued into clay? Where I'm at we have terrible clay soil, that makes it hard for the potato plants to not get glued in from.

So I hoped to get some ideas on what people are doing for soil preparation on growing potatoes.

Thank you very much for this.