Potatoes need to be kept in a cool place. But they will just naturally sprout after they reach a certain time. There's not much you can do about it. You can break the sprouts off and go ahead and use them.

Right. All the rain we had may have made them moister. But potatoes dug in July and stored under a bed or in a closet indoors will sprout by November. We only plan on eating home grown potatoes from late May as "new potatoes" until about Christmas after I have pulled the sprouts off a couple times at least. Then we buy potatoes if we want them. We also raise sweet potatoes too and since they are dug in October, they will keep fairly well until the following March or April. Then I roast and freeze the ones left for later use.

Has any one canned potatoes? Do they get mushy? Can you make mashed potatoes with them? Probably should go search the harvest forum, huh.

I don't can them, but they can be canned in a pressure canner. I believe you could reheat canned Irish potatoes and then make mashed potatoes from them, but I've never tried it. I don't know if the home-canned ones get mushy---it probably depends on the variety because some varieties hold up better to canning than others. I have made mashed potatoes from store-bought canned potatoes once, and they were okay but they were not the same as mashed potatoes from freshly-cooked potatoes.

Here's the potato canning page from the NCHFP.

How To Can White (Irish) Potatoes

Dawn,

Kennebecs can very well. They are a late season potato and they stand up to abusive cooking.

I blanched and froze some of them too last Summer. They were dug as new potatoes which means they cook quicker. I cooked some this evening with bratwurst. A little salt, pepper and sweet cream butter. YUM YUM!

I washed and quartered them before blanching.

Johnny

Rubbing my belly...

AmyinOwasso/zone 6b,

I pressure canned Kennebecs last summer. I canned the runts whole and cut the larger spuds with my French fry machine. Most of my canned Kennebecs are ready for the oven right out of the jar. I coat the cookie sheet with corn meal, dry the precut French fries on linen, then place the fries on the cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven just long enough to brown them a little. They smell and taste great made that way. They are already mostly cooked during the canning process. FYI the corn meal prevents sticking.

Johnny

Sounds good, Johnny. I will remember that.

We live just outside Tulsa and we dug the last of our red potatoes today.

We have been dehydrating and canning potatoes for a few years. We find the older the jars of potatoes, the more the starch breaks down and the jars look cloudy. The potatoes are fine but they don't look pretty. They can be used for mashed, potato salad and even drained and browned in a skillet. Well worth the time. The red potatoes hold up better than any other for us in the jars.

ssurbangardener,

Which red potato variety do you like best? I like Red Pontiac best. We will be planting at least 400 pounds of Red Pontiac the 14th of Feb. 2016.

I'll be cooking some Kennebec potatoes tomorrow evening. One quart lasts me about three days.

Johnny

We grow Red Pontiac. We planted 3 different potatoes in our small back yard and got about 300 pounds. Our neighbors were happy to get all those potatoes. Our green beans were a bust this year but lots of peas.