Starting potatoes from harvest for seed potatoes?

[gixxerific]

I searched for an hour+ yesterday, read several web pages, watched several videos, searched this site but couldn't find what I wanted to know.

I have some potatoes from an earlier harvest I have been saving. I put them in an old shoe box with dirt and a little peat moss. They are in my kitchen on my "starting table" by a window. The air is set to about 75* with indirect sunlight on them. The thing I couldn't find is should I wet them down or leave them in there dry until they sprout?

Any suggestions on getting them to sprout?

Thanks

[PlantAvenue]

Hmmm... the only way that I've ever heard of sprouting potatoes (keep in mind I'm a newbie!) is to keep them in a cool dark place. I've never heard of sprouting them in soil (they seem to sprout wonderfully on their own without soil! lol). I'm curious about this topic so I'll be checking back to see what others have to say.

Good luck

[gixxerific]

Yeah I'm not sure either. I did see somewhere yesterday someone said to put peat moss in with them. I have heard that peat moss is hydrophobic meaning hard to get wet\stay wet. So possibly the peat was to keep the potatoes dry and not rot.

[cynthia_h]

In my experience, the *absolutely best way* to sprout potatoes is to plan on eating them.

Honestly. So many times I've put potatoes aside in a pull-out drawer we have where they live at room temp (our kitchen has no heat except when the oven is on, so it runs a little cooler than normal) in the complete dark.

I've had to switch dinner plans more times than I can count due to sprouted potatoes.

So maybe, if you treat the potatoes as if you were *planning* on eating them...

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[applestar]

I pre-sprouted some seed potatoes to grow this spring. But the conditions were much different then.... Right now, all I remember is that I cut them up and put them in a paper egg case, loosely wrapped with plastic wrap or maybe a veggie bag, then put them where it was cool but not freezing -- initially next to the hot water heater, then when I started the seed starting area in the garage, on top of the holiday lights. I think I was aiming for ambient temp of 55~65 degrees (while the rest of the garage was in upper 20's~30's).

I've been looking for an old post of mine, the one that said potatoes should be planted when those shrubs with yellow flowers start to bloom in spring. Ah! [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13262]HERE[/url] it is!

I've been trying to figure out if you CAN plant potatoes for fall crop. Maybe "fall" potatoes are just the LATE maturing spring potatoes??? Also, where the ground doesn't freeze, maybe you can plant them later when the ground is cooler. Didn't someone post the fall potato growing (plant late fall for harvesting with spring peas) website -- the one from Adams County, Pa. Master Gardeners? I have that link somewhere....

[gixxerific]

Thanks both of you.