Correct storage will enable you to be self sufficient in potatoes. You can keep maincrop potatoes in store from harvest until your first earlies arrive the following year.
Never store potatoes in a plastic bag. All that will happen is they will rot in short order. Keep them preferably in hessian sacks that will allow the moisture given off by the potatoes to evaporate.
You really want to avoid keeping them somewhere that gets too hot or cold. 5 degrees is the ideal temperature but never let them freeze or they develop a strange sweet taste.
Keep them dark as well, light encourages greening and green potatoes are actually harmful for you to eat. My other tip is to drop a few slug pellets in the sack when storing potatoes in case a slug is hiding in a tiny hole in a potato.
The slug is attracted and killed by the pellets, leaving the rest of your crop unharmed. However, I’ve been told this may constitute a health risk and be a misuse of pesticides! Scattering slug pellets on the ground around your potato crop is OK but popping a few in a sack with them has not been assessed and checked and studied for safety.
So only following this tip when storing potatoes if you’re the sort of risk-taking daredevil I am.
There’s a lot of information on Growing Potatoes on the site along with an article on storing potatoes and, of course, our book: How to Store Your Home Grown Produce
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