The shelf life of the common potato.

[Dave 123]

Yes, whole fields of beautiful cauliflowers and broccoli get ploughed in for want of pickers. Orchards of apples with only one or two on each tree. All perfectly good food that people would be glad of, it's infuriating.

That's fair enough with broccoli and cauliflower.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Think along lines of forced rhubarb .

Not sure I want my tatties with custard....

 

[ianrauk]

Orchards of apples with only one or two on each tree. All perfectly good food that people would be glad of, it's infuriating.

Cycling through Teynham (on the FNR route to Whitstable) the other weekend. Passing an orchard, myself, Ross and Martin were amazed at the amount of Apples that had obviously not been picked and had been left to fall to the ground and just left there.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Cycling through Teynham (on the FNR route to Whitstable) the other weekend. Passing an orchard, myself, Ross and Martin were amazed at the amount of Apples that had obviously not been picked and had been left to fall to the ground and just left there.

You are Just William AICMFP

 

[growingvegetables]

I came by a field in November where they had a mountain of potatoes covered totally in straw and then covered with tarps. They stayed there over a month before they loaded them on trucks.

So now you know how to keep spuds.

Not a lot different to how we used to store potatoes (and other root veg) when I was a kid. A clamp (well, that's what we called it).

Basically a 6 inch layer of straw. Pyramid of veg - to about 2 foot high. Cover with 6 inch layer of straw. Dig a ditch round the clamp, and pile soil on top of the straw. You want ... about a 6 inch soil cover (?), to entirely seal, except for a wee "chimney" of straw for a bit of ventilation. Keeps the roots cool and dark, but frost free.

Aye - those were the days. When girls were feminine, and boys wore shorts. [I'll get me coat ]

 

[Reynard]

Mind you, I had a bumper apple crop this autumn just gone; far more than I could possibly use, and a friend's pet sheep need to lose weight, so I just had to leave them. Mind, it is rather amusing to see the birds get drunk on windfall fruit.

I did store a reasonable quantity and I'll have apples till Easter (Bramleys and Granny Smith left now, the Jonagold have all been eaten). I keep them in an unheated room in spread out on newspaper in crates.

Spuddies and onions go in a cardboard box and paper sack respectively on the stone floor in the kitchen and get checked over once in a while. Just finished a load I bought on YS around halloween time. They've kept ok. The ones I bought a fortnight ago are sprouting for England already...

I live out in the boonies and there's a few sharp bends near my place - guaranteed to be able to pick up spuds and onions. One year a whole trailer overturned which was kind of handy

On the other hand, a lot of stuff (fruit in particular) that I buy on yellow sticker needs at least a week in a warm room before it's remotely ripe...

 

[tyred]

I came by a field in November where they had a mountain of potatoes covered totally in straw and then covered with tarps. They stayed there over a month before they loaded them on trucks.

So now you know how to keep spuds.

That's the traditional method, here we called it a potato pit. Straw and tarpaulin us actually the lazy version. Traditionally it would be thatched with rushes to a depth of about 10 - 12 inches with the odd shovelful of clay to keep the thatch in place. Then after a few days it when the air would have blown through it, you would cover it in clay completely to seal it for winter and the potatoes came out of it in the spring time looking just like they had been freshly dug.

Nobody does that now as it's so labour intensive but it was still common here into the early 1990s. If it was too wet to dig potatoes you went and spent the day cutting the rushes for the pit instead.

 

[growingvegetables]

On the other hand, a lot of stuff (fruit in particular) that I buy on yellow sticker needs at least a week in a warm room before it's remotely ripe...

There is a special corner in hell, reserved for those supermarkets who install special lighting systems over their tomatoes. They LOOK so invitingly red-ripe.

But pick up a pack, and walk away from the lights - and .

 

[growingvegetables]

... and the potatoes came out of it in the spring time looking just like they had been freshly dug.

Yup - that's my memories of the "clamp". (That was NE Scotland.)

 

[Reynard]

There is a special corner in hell, reserved for those supermarkets who install special lighting systems over their tomatoes. They LOOK so invitingly red-ripe.

But pick up a pack, and walk away from the lights - and .

Oh yes... I've had some that you could sell to the military for ammunition. Consequently I tend to buy either canned tomatoes or those tetrapaks of passata.

 

[growingvegetables]

Oh yes... I've had some that you could sell to the military for ammunition. Consequently I tend to buy either canned tomatoes or those tetrapaks of passata.

Or pop by local Asian shops.

I have a secret vice . Looking out for them reducing the prices on their large cardboard boxes of tomatoes. Hint - those are ripe .

Hmm - I do now have rather large stocks of tomato chutney, and a freezer-full of packs of tomatoes roasted to preserve them.

 

[Reynard]

Or pop by local Asian shops.

I have a secret vice . Looking out for them reducing the prices on their large cardboard boxes of tomatoes. Hint - those are ripe .

Hmm - I do now have rather large stocks of tomato chutney, and a freezer-full of packs of tomatoes roasted to preserve them.

No Asian shops around here There's always the local market, but the tomatoes there are just as much hit-and-miss as the supermarket ones. But I suppose you're well sorted for soup and pasta sauces then

Tomato chutney is good. I like tomato chutney. Actually, I like chutney full stop. Not just as an accompaniment to delectable things in sandwiches, but also as a good way of using up excess fruit & veg.

 

[lazybloke]

Still eating my 2016 harvest of allotment spuds (Desiree, mostly). They've been in the shed for months (washed, dried, stored in thick cotton draw-string bags) and they've not got eyes growing yet, although you can see that time is approaching.

If your spuds are growing eyes within a few days of purchase, i'd say storage conditions were far from ideal.

 

[summerdays]

Just another observation on modern life.
When I was young, I can recall potatoes being bought by the sackload as we were a family of six. Said sack of potatoes, covered in mud au natural, seemed to last a month or so.
So; why is it that when I go to buy potatoes in my local supermarket they now have a "best before date" of about 4 or 5 days hence? And they come nicely pre-washed in a little polythene bag, costing one of your British pounds for enough potatoes to feed one full grown male for 3 meals if he's not too hungry!

Yes we'd buy a sack of potatoes (but it was the staple in our house... rice and pasta were an exotic treat!). But I also remember occasions going to a field to "pick your own", where you would fill a sack whilst getting very muddy!

My problem keeping things from the allotment is garlic, I can grow a year's supply but they are already starting to sprout at the moment.... I just pick those ones first when I go to the box. By May/June the ones left will be a little woody.

 

[User482]

I find that our potatoes store reasonably well if left in the ground. Certainly for a couple of months, anyway. That's with first and second earlies. I've had much less success with storing apples so most of the excess was turned into wine, or a variety of alcoholic infusions.