White Potatoes, again.

I,m a fan of Cyprus potatoes ,there’s a market stall I get them at…sadly I don’t eat potatoes nowadays but the family love these as skinny fries and baked potatoes.
I used to live on baked potatoes in my early twenties

I always buy Vivaldi white potatoes from Sainsbury’s and have always been pleased with them.

Brilliant! Potatoes are the way to go for me! I have a large veg trug which will be perfect.

keepingquiet

I may well try to grow some myself this year- can you get potato bags like you could grow tomatoes?

I'm asking because I have a small but sunny backyard with no soil- so I have to grow everything in pots.

Potato sacks are good to grow the first earlies, try Jersey Royals or Jazzy. We grew our Jazzys in potato bags at our allotment despite having raised beds where we grow our main crop.
Potatoes are very accommodating and will happily grow in deep containers. Once I grew them in a classroom sand pit to show my pupils where food came from.

Thankyou- I used to love those home-grown potatoes! I shall give it a go.

keepingquiet

I may well try to grow some myself this year- can you get potato bags like you could grow tomatoes?

I'm asking because I have a small but sunny backyard with no soil- so I have to grow everything in pots.

Grow first earlies in a grow bag and you will have a nice crop of new potatoes.
There is nothing better than the taste of freshly dug new potatoes

I may well try to grow some myself this year- can you get potato bags like you could grow tomatoes?

I'm asking because I have a small but sunny backyard with no soil- so I have to grow everything in pots.

Maincrop potatoes are mostly grown in the UK because transport cost across the channel is so high, even so this year prices are so low in EU there is import. Most imported potatoes come as frozen chips or other processed product, one variety developed in 1904 “Bintje” forms the backbone of production in Northern Europe, grown on a very large scale for processing, the frozen chips you buy are quite likely Bintje

We also grow potatoes, our favourite are Jazzy. We store them in hessian bags hoisted on hooks in the garage. We had them for Christmas dinner, delicious.

I like red spuds best, specially Desiré.
And I'm so happy not to have to wash the mud off like we did when we were first married. And you quite often found you'd bought the odd stone as well.

We grow potatoes, clean them off (not wash), they store well.

I've done some looking into this- it is accepted that potatoes are not the same quality they used to be and washed potatoes was not one of the reasons given, though I have to admit it does make a certain kind of sense. You should always wash potatoes anyway. I blame the plastic packaging as well, which has already been mentioned.
The other reasons given were:
adverse weather conditions, including both wetter weather, and drought!
The expense of using fertilisers and chemicals, making Maris Pipers especially expensive to grow.
The complex trade markets, particularly following Brexit.
The shortfall of farm workers, also following Brexit.

68% of potatoes sold are grown in the UK- the others coming from the Netherlands, Belgium and Israel. Make of that info what you will.

Blame consumers wanting washed potatoes, that ruins shelf life so don’t try to store them too long.
Don’t try to store them too early, November is plenty early enough, weather is too warm before. After that as cool as possible but frost free place.

Potatoes are rubbish wherever you buy them and however well you store them these days.

I blame Brexit.

Even if they do sprout, what does it matter? You just cut it off. All it means is that if you planted it, the potato would be growing shoots.
It sometimes occurs to me while I’m peeling potatoes, that this is a living thing and I’m about to kill it with boiling water. 😱😂

A few months ago I read the storage instructions on bags of potatoes. Yes, I know I should always do that !
It was recommended that they be stored in the fridge, old and new ones. I always thought that was not the right thing to do but it does work. I put them in the bottom drawer, loose with a couple of paper towels over them. They don't seem to sprout or wrinkle for ages. Try it !

We grow our own potatoes & store them in paper sacks. They last right through to when we dig new ones in the early summer. We usually grow a mix of reds and whites. No problem whatsoever in keeping them that long in a cool shed.

valdavi i used to grow a lot f my own potatoes, it was a amazing what strange marked and deformed potatoes we used to eat uite hppily, when I had grown them.

M0nica

I just cut out the dark bits and sprouts and eat whats left. there is no need to throw potatoes away.

Me too Monica, usually you're left with 95% of the spud to eat.We used to grow them to sell & Mum always used up the "rejects" (Black blemishes, harvesting damage, too small) for our meals.

Potatoes do bruise, & they do get flung around a bit in the supermarket, I think that's what causes those annoying big black patches under the skin.

TBH I only ever buy U.K. grown potatoes and have nearly always found them fine.
I dare say last summer’s drought didn’t help, however.

I do open any plastic bags as soon as I get them home (ditto for all veg in fact) and any small ‘new’ or ‘baby’ potatoes are kept in the fridge.

I always buy red potatoes,never had any problems with them.

It was a bad year here for growing spuds. Too hot and dry in the growing season. Intermittent irrigation causes smaller spuds with dry and wet layers of growth which cause them to burst in cooking. The black bits are probably signs of blight infection. My home grown spuds were useless this year, so I am not surprised the current offerings are sub standard. A lot of other countries also had very challenging conditions. Blame it on the climate.

M and S have a bag of British queen's which are nice.

We buy straight from the farm. Our normal guy has retired and the 2 we have tried have not been so good.
Recently a local farm advertised them at 5p a kg because that was all he got for bagging and shipping to depot, so I guess that many are not bothering

Primrose53

The white potatoes we had last night for mash were really watery. The best potatoes I’ve bought recently were from Tesco at Christmas and they were just 15p for a bag. I think they were all rounders.

If you boil some varieties for too long they will go watery, choose a variety that you like and stick to them, from the same, most red varieties are better but cost more.