Suppressing Sprouts

[digitS']

My potato harvest was a good one this last summer. I had a guess on what it was around on TEG, somewhere'z ... But, summer is right. Since I went back to growing spuds about 10 years ago, I have had early varieties that could be harvested before there is any hint of a cool down, let alone a frost.

Storage is a little too warm in my basement room but we can get them to the end of January. Since production was good, there are still quite a few potatoes down there.

Sprouts have been rubbed off twice. Smaller tubers were used first or they would be wrinkly things. Flavor is holding up but we are just about to the end of storage possibilities and it's a shame that I may have to throw some out in a week or two .

Commercial crops are treated to retard sprouting, maybe repeatedly, and even before they are harvested. Here's an idea for how they might be organically treated in storage and it might be something I'll try in 2018: pdf file, Kansas Extension

Blotter paper sprinkled with peppermint oil retards sprouting. If you have trouble finding blotter paper, newspaper can be used and it goes over the potatoes in a box. The oil has to be replenished every 2 - 3 weeks.

I imagine that this treatment won't really be cheap and I'm okay with having home-grown potatoes for over 6 months, by now. I'll try not to have quite so much to bring home but if'n I do ...

The researchers are at the U of Idaho and I know Nora and knew that she was an expert on potato storage. This is just an addition to what she does for commercial interests in the state.

Steve

 

[Beekissed]

How about canning those spuds before they go to waste?

 

[digitS']

Oh boy, I would hardly have an idea of how to do that safely, @Beekissed .

It could be that my motley collection of widemouth quarts and 1 1/2 quarts might prove sufficient, the notion of expensive to dashing peppermint oil on newspaper in a box doesn't seem reasonable if buying jars etc would be the alternative.

I may even have peppermint oil ... there was a time when DW was making sachets ...

Steve

 

[Beekissed]

Oh boy, I would hardly have an idea of how to do that safely, @Beekissed .

It could be that my motley collection of widemouth quarts and 1 1/2 quarts might prove sufficient, the notion of expensive to dashing peppermint oil on newspaper in a box doesn't seem reasonable if buying jars etc would be the alternative.

I may even have peppermint oil ... there was a time when DW was making sachets ...

Steve

Dig, any ol' hillbilly can can up food in a jar..it ain't rocket science. You could do it safely.

 

[digitS']

Why are we on TEG? A BIG reason for me is motivation!

Found the peppermint oil on a basement shelf ...



Steve

 

[so lucky]

Are you going to try the peppermint oil on the potatoes you have left? Or wait till next crop?
I remember that "Bar Sprout" from the good old days. I probably sold a ton of that, one-pound shaker can at a time.

 

[digitS']

Bar Sprout???

That's a vacuum cleaner box and most of the spuds are in there with the newspaper, sprinkled with peppermint oil. The ones that didn't go into the big cardboard box, I think we can use before they go bad.

Maybe I should be checking somewhere other than that newsletter to see if there is information on how much oil to use.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

we just 'et 'em. as for putting them up, need to pressure can them IMO.

if you cut them into chunks and bury them in the cool ground down deep enough some of them will reform themselves into little potatoes:

http://www.anthive.com/project/taters/

 

[digitS']

This didn't work. I threw away about 10# or 15# of potatoes this week.

I had potatoes outside the box and inside. Inside, there was the peppermint oil sprinkled newspaper over the top of those potatoes - nearly all, Red LaSoda. I sprinkled the oil again about the first of March. Perhaps, I didn't use enuf oil. Well ... I wonder what it have cost me to use a cup of that oil!

Growing just about the right amount of potatoes for DW and me isn't a perfect proposition. I figure that the average annual US consumption of 125#/person is about right for us. We need

1 spud ... or 125# for 6 months.​

That isn't 100 square feet of potatoes but it also isn't 200 square feet. However, there are good and bad growing years.

The first of the earlies are dug about the 20th of July and from then on, we have all the potatoes we care to eat until ... about the end of January. Taking the sprouts off twice made it so we had potatoes another 6 weeks this year. But, the sprouts were back in a major way in March. I selected the ones nice and firm but after awhile, I become apprehensive about using them. They didn't have the bitterness of green potatoes which indicates the presence of toxins. However, I have read that the toxins develop not only in the green parts but also in sprouting potatoes. I'm still not sure about when or how much but buying a 5# bag of baking potatoes this week was very cheap. We just gotta use what we keep at a reasonable time over the 6 storage months.

Steve