Advice on storing potatoes and veg

[ilovelibraries]

So usually I just buy what I need for a week or so and store it in my fridge (veg) and cupboard (potatoes).

I thought I should get a sack of potatoes for the garage, but can’t find any anywhere. So I have an extra regular supermarket bag of potatoes, carrots and onions. They are in plastic bags so I know I need to take them out of that, but what can I store them in as I don’t have any paper bags?

Do I store them all together in one bag or separate? Is there anything I can put in to keep them a bit longer?

Advice please wise ones. Thank you.

Someone said it's best to store ten in cloth bags, so all potatoes and onions in my household are currently residing in those bags you get when you buy posh shoes and handbags.

A pillowcase would do.

Pillowcase does the job

Yes cloth bags....I use little sack things.

Didn't think of a pillow case. Anyway, I've got all of mine tucked away now.

Great. Thanks everyone. Off to hunt out all of our unused pillow cases!

Can I just add, if they start to go soft / you're not likely to eat them all it is better to give them away to somebody in need rather than bin them.

Ariela, great advice. We have an active group in the village who are offering things to people self-isolating, etc. I only have an extra bag, so can’t see it going to waste.

Just to add to Ariela's point, if they start to go soft, you can cook them and this will give you a few more days in the fridge, or you can freeze them.

For example - potatoes:
Make wedges or jackets - keep in fridge for another couple of days and re-heat, or can freeze.
Make mash - keep in fridge or freeze.

Carrots - can roast, and freeze or refrigerate, then re-heat
Turn into soup (can use onions up too!) and refrigerate for another couple of days, or freeze.

Beware of storing potatoes in an enclosed space such as a cellar, because if they start to go rotten, they give off deadly poisonous fumes.

www.canr.msu.edu/news/storing_potatoes_for_quality_and_food_safety

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/14/girl-8-orphaned-after-gas-from-rotting-potatoes-killed-her-entire-family_n_7360976.html

I would wrap in newspaper - but they need to be somewhere cool imv which is hard to find with modern heating.

I hate peeling potatoes so when making mash which they all inhale I always make extra & shove in the freezer for topping on cottage or fish pie.

Keep onions well away from spuds.

Oh!

Didn’t know that. How away is well away?

I keep my spuds in the fridge. They last way longer.

I think that potatoes do best in a dark place, salad in the bottom of the fridge, tomatoes in the fridge until a couple of days before you want them and then bring them to room temp. All root veg does best in a dark place.

Just to add to this thread that I made a soup yesterday of all the veg past their best.

I used 2 carrots which were bendy! 3 potatoes that were a bit soft, an onion that was starting to sprout, some cooked but frozen cabbage & half a small carton of passata. Sounds awful I know but I fried it all off & added a veg oxo cube & blended it & it tastes amazing!

So glad I didn't bin it.

Oh & I keep potatoes in a pillowcase!

Why would you keep onions and potatoes apart? I don't. They live together in a pullout drawer in one of our kitchen cupboards and seem OK. One thing I'd say is that I'm nearly 60 and all my life have simply removed sprouts from old potatoes and then proceeded as normal. Never seen the need to throw them away and never had any adverse consequences. Green bits obviously are a risk. If I find a small potato with a green bit I throw it away. A bigger potato with a small green bit - I cut off the green bit and a good margin, eat the rest.

You can peel and parboil potatoes and freeze them

www.rd.com/food/store-potatoes-onions-right-way/

Garage is the right place for root veg and onions at this cool time of year. Yes to the cloth bag and darkness too. You might need to hang the bag where mice can't reach it.

Hello,
If you are holding potatoes in a bag, it is better to choose not a plastic bag, but a bag of fabric, so that light does not penetrate there. Otherwise, the tubers will sprout.
But when potatoes are not stored correctly, the result is rotten potatoes toxic gas. Rotten potatoes smell bad and rotten potatoes can make you sick.
www.tracewellness.com/2019/08/rotten-potatoes.html
How is how a toxic gas from rotten potatoes killed a family a whole family is Russia.