I had a great potato harvest this year. I purchase a bunch of seed potatoes and planted them in the spring.
After hilling them twice with soil and woodchips, I dug them up and used a lot of them.
I still have about 80 lbs of different varieties in my basement. A lot of them are sprouting already.
Are they still edible? If I want to save some for seed in the spring what should I do with them at this point?
Should I cut off the sprouts or let them do their thing?

Thanks

I've seen a lot of stuff about storing them in a bucket full of sand recently on the social network sites etc... seems like a legit idea to me, but I've never tried it so I cannot report if it works or not...

This is what I do. Put the taters in a large pot and then fill it with play sand. These are in a heated garage that is normally around 40-45 degrees inside. Wish I had a root cellar.

Sounds like your basement is too warm for them to keep well. They shouldnt be sprouting this early. the sprouts are poisonous, and they will cause the tater to shrink. The taters are still good to eat, you just dont want to eat the sprouts. If they have small sprouts on them you dont have much to worry about, if sprouts are big (over an inch long) you need to snap the sprouts off of them.

If the sprouts are big they will probably ruin long before next spring if you leave them inside, If you store them in sand it might slow them down, but I doubt it. if it is warn, they will sprout like crazy if they are covered.

If you want to keep some for seed, go dig a trench about 18" deep and put about 6" of fluffed straw in the bottom and then put the potatoes in untilt they fill the tench to about 2"-3" from the top of the pit. Dig a shallow drainage ditch around the hole after you Put another thick layer straw on top of the potatoes and then cover the straw with a few inches of dirt so that you have a mound that will shed water into your drainage ditch and the potatoes are insulated enough so they wont freeze.

Those potatoes will not sprout and keep well for seed.  

I store my potatoes in woven feed sacks in my unheated cellar. It stays about 48 degrees in my basement all year around. I usually have sprout free potatoes up until the middle of april, and potatoes plenty good to eat in july.

Controlling tempurature is key

Above post is good.  I would just research root cellar old timey stuff since I have been told this works for onions as well from what I have been told.  I did not have a good place to do this previously.



The place I rent does have a place to do this but it needs some work.



What is best place for playsand?  A bag here or there is not too expensive I guess but if someone wanted to really set up some storage with a bunch of buckets or other containers I could see wanting a source of clean sand other than bags.



Now for a question.



Will the sprouting taters act as seed taters in spring?



I understand those sprouting now are an issue and the tater will probably be shrunken and squishy by this coming spring if it is sprouting right now.



But seed taters grown this year and the results stored properly, will those equal future seed taters?



I am working on some ideas for projects and taters are one of the easier things to mess with so I plan to mess with them come spring and want to get lots of opinions on odds and ends.



I do have some search results and books to do some reading on, but heck I like asking here as well.

Asked and answered above.  The key is to keep it cold but not below freezing and no light.

What is the temperature in the basement?

It is dark but the temp fluctuates between 50-60 degrees.
I am guessing that this is not cold enough.

Mom and dad's cellar never goes below freezing, even when the temps. go below zero outside.  Thick walls and insulation up front (even the door) and dirt piled up in the back and most of the sides.

Dad made some big wood boxes, about 4 feet long by 2.5 feed wide by 2.5 feet deep and used them to store potatoes and apples.

Just like apples, some types of potatoes store better/longer than others.

No lights in the cellar except when they went in to get some of the canned vegetables from the garden.

Yup, just pick up the potatoes, one by one, and rub your fingers over the surface to bust the "eyes" off them.  

In the spring, when you get ready to plant, cut them up so that there is an eye or two on each piece you plant.  The eyes will be either the roots or the stalk/plant (I can't remember which).

I've dug potatoes in late August (when we took in the garden at home) that had the piece of potato the plant grew from still on the roots and looking like it had just been planted in the dirt a few days before you dug it up.  Most of the time there's nothing left of it, but sometimes it's still there.

You could can the potatoes.  We had jar of potatoes last night that I canned a few years ago and they were delicious.

1)if they are sprouting now, by that a mean big juicy sprouts with pale leaves, chances are they will shrivel up and rot well before spring.

2)yup, they would be good, plant em the end of feburary or the begining of march. If they are decent sized cut them up so that you have a few eyes per piece. If they are small and shriveled from sprouting I just take off the sprouts and plant them whole. A good fertilize for them is 5-20-20 or 5-10-10. 5-20-20 is better tho. just put it in the trench and side dress them again a few weeks before they bloom.

there is something about canned potatoes... They are great.