Storage
How to store potatoes
The short answer
Store only maincrop potatoes, and only sound ones: dry them in the sun for a few hours, brush off the soil, and keep them in paper or hessian sacks, or on slatted trays, somewhere dark, cool, dry and frost-free. Not plastic. Check them every few weeks for rot, and aim to finish them before early spring, when they start to sprout.
A sack of maincrops can last from October to March. Three things end it early: damage at lifting, light, and damp.
Before they go in
- Lift maincrops for storing properly: when the leaves turn yellow, cut off the top growth, wait 10 days, then dig.(RHS)
- Dry them in the sun for a few hours and brush off the soil. Don’t wash them.(RHS, Garden Organic)
- Sort them. Store only undamaged, dry potatoes.(RHS)
- Discard any green ones: they are potentially poisonous.(RHS)
- Don’t store blighted potatoes. RHS says they won’t be suitable for storing.(RHS)
Where and in what
- Paper or hessian sacks, or slatted trays, in the dark to stop them sprouting.(RHS)
- Thick paper sacks closed at the neck conserve moisture.(Garden Organic)
- Not plastic sacks: the humidity inside is too high and sets them sprouting.(Garden Organic)
- Dry, cool and frost-free, such as a garage.(RHS)
- Garden Organic gives 5 to 10°C. RHS gives no figure.(Garden Organic)
Why green potatoes go
- Light turns tubers green. Keep them dry and dark.(RHS, Garden Organic)
- Green potatoes have high levels of solanine, a toxic alkaloid.(Garden Organic)
- The green colour itself is harmless chlorophyll, but light also causes the glycoalkaloids solanine and chaconine to form, and greening cannot be reversed.(AHDB)
How long they keep
- Maincrops keep for several months.(RHS)
- Finish them before early spring, when they start to sprout and shrivel.(RHS)
- Earlies are best eaten soon after lifting; most are not suitable for long-term storage.(RHS, Garden Organic)
Where the sources differ
When to lift them in the first place: when to harvest maincrop potatoes.
| Question | RHS | Others |
|---|---|---|
| Wait before lifting | Cut off the top growth when the leaves yellow, wait 10 days. | Garden Organic: leave in the ground two to three weeks after the tops die back. |
| Temperature | Cool and frost-free; no figure. | Garden Organic: 5 to 10°C. AHDB’s colder figures (below about 3°C) are for commercial stores avoiding sprout suppressants, not home stores. |
| Drying time | A few hours in the sun. | Garden Organic: a couple of hours on the soil surface. |
Know what you grew, and what it gave
Log what you pick, and how much, bed by bed. Vercro keeps the record, so next year you know what was worth the space.
Keep going
Where this comes from
The growing advice on this page comes from the published sources below, each linked beside the point it supports. Where two good sources disagree, we show both rather than choosing the convenient one. Reviewed 19 September 2026.
- Potatoes: grow your own, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Potatoes, Garden Organic. Read 19 September 2026.
- Harvesting and storing vegetables, Garden Organic. Read 19 September 2026.
- Greening (commercial potato guidance), AHDB. Read 19 September 2026.
- Sprout suppression (commercial potato guidance), AHDB. Read 19 September 2026.