Kitchen Garden Forum

The prolonged extremely cold spell this winter when the temperature ranged from -14C to -7C for nearly two weeks damaged about half of my stored potatoes despite them being covered with a duvet and some fleece wadding material.

They've never been affected before with this protection.

One thing I did notice was that the larger potatoes suffered most and had to be thrown away, probably because the larger cells burst more easily with the frost than the smaller potatoes, most of which survived.

Another really noticeable thing was that the Highland Burgundy Red and the Salad Blue which have really strong coloured flesh were almost all untouched. The pigment must have an anti freeze effect.

I was wondering how everyone else had fared this winter, and if anyone has any tips or comments?

My spuds were the same, even though they were in a 'frost free shed'. I think it was just the extended low temperatures. Big spuds don't have big cells, just more of 'em. Cheers, Tony.

I lost alot of my potatoes as well this year , I wasn't sure whether they were frosted or if one or two had gone rotton and if that had affected the rest, I had them in hession sacks with more sacks on top in a cold shed. Never lost any like that before.

Bren

We stored ours, as usual, in our solid garage in old apple boxes stacked up and covered with wads of newspapers and hessian sacks. This year we lost quite a few around the edges, the ones in the middle seemed to have been protected by the others. 'Sarpo Mira' have fared best, it appears, but now there are only a few left altogether and we shall have to start buying them ....