Hugo,
Thanks for posting this. We've had the same problem. We followed the advice in Barbara Pleasant's book, Home Grown Pantry, which suggests storing the potatoes in buckets full of damp sand. We lost more than half our harvest using this method, some lost when they went mushy or soft and another batch when our cat decided that a
bucket full of sand made the perfect litter box. :) We tossed all the
poop potatoes, of
course, and the mush taters weren't edible, but the ones that just sprouted we removed the sprouts, and they were fine to eat. None of them showed green areas.
All,
I figure our basement just didn't get cold
enough this fall to keep them from sprouting, as we've had 6o-degree days here as late as December, and maybe the sand medium mimicked soil too much. I'm curious to hear others' advice on how to properly store potatoes. I think we're going to ditch the sand, but what about brown paper sacks, rolled closed at the top to keep the light out?
Any other ideas out there?