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I have never seen such bad taters

T

the tractor vet

Well-known Member
In my youth i hauled better looking taters out and dumped them in the gully then what you now buy at the stores . This last bag from KITCHEN FARMS was total Garbage , taters cut during harvest poorly graded dirty not washed six are rotten and the wife just bought them last Friday . If my uncle saw what was being put on the tables today by some of these growers he would be rolling over in his grave. When i was a pup i thought that taters and wheat were the only thing growen on farms around here . Now today not one , just about small dairy farms . Once they were my bread and butter keeping guys going . Now not any of my old customers are milking cows . Some have sold out some playen small time grain operations and working away .
 
You should see the onions. They do not make your eyes water and don't do much for a salad or burger as well.
 
For the grocer it is about filling the bag at the least amount of cost to them. My old German grandmother used to grumble about the potatoes 30 years ago. I'd hate to see her in the store today if she was still around. I wish the best ground for potatoes on this farm was not so convenient for the critters of the woods or I would plant some.
 
Quality control HAW ya got to be kidding me , They look like they came off the field and across the bagger with out ever going thru a washer or grading table . When you cover 12-1500 acres a year and dig haul grade and bag and SHIP taters you know how what and where . My uncle did the table stock along with Chip taters , yes the chip taters were dug and loaded straight out of the fields , table stock went into one of the six huge storages that were clement controld with huge airation fans and heat during the cold . Grading was done in the new addition to the old bank barn with a bagged tater storage area and a two dock to load semi's Quiet a set up as we would fill the bottom part of the old bank barn with taters to be graded and they would then be washed down into the troughs then flowed to the elevator up on to the washing table where they were washed and scrubbed then across the drying table then on to the sorting tables then the grading tables and into the bags . One has never worked his donkey off till one bags a semi load of 42-48000 lbs of ten pound bags . Back then we bagged 10-15-25- 50 -100lb sacks . The 25's were my favort to bag , the 50's were a bit much for us 12-13 year olds , but by 16 we could handle the 100' s.
 
The potatoes from our small-town store don't seem to bad, they're just really small.

I've heard that potatoes should not be washed until ready to use. While I've never seen store potatoes that still had earth on them, it's not unusual to see a moderate coating of dirt dust.

Another issue plaguing potato growers is potato scab. We never used to have that here, so I assume we got some infected seed potatoes about 3 years back. Here's an article about potato scab:
https://www.planetnatural.com/pest-problem-solver/plant-disease/potato-scab/

An even better article here:
https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/potato-scab/
 
Next month I'll start seeing onions that we call strawberry onions. The strawberry farmers around my part of Florida always plant a few rows of them next to the berry fields. They get really big and are some of the best onions you will ever eat. Raw on a burger or cooked with just about anything.
 
Have you ever noticed how much faster a garden potato cooks than a commercial one? Baked on the grill is an easy 15 min sooner. I don't know if it's something they do to them or just the genetics.
 
I remember from long ago when I worked in a store the produce manager going to the market to buy for the store. Everything was graded. Some spuds, and everything else were really nice, others as you described and a couple of in between grades.

The stores buy what they can move, sell cheap to draw customers or business reasons. In our area Safeway sold grade A, other stores sold cheaper ones. Its still that way, Local 10 Box discount place, Reasor's (higher end), Aldi and Walmart all have differing grades.
 
I have found a lot of potatoes that had cuts and marks on them. These are machine bruised and it is the sign of careless harvesting techniques. Maybe too big a rush to get the potatoes harvested and less attention to how the harvesters are set up. The wife bought a ten pound bag for Christmas and when we were peeling them every other potato had a cut or gouge.
 
I raised a 50' row this year of some kind of potatoe and they were watered well. I barely covered them in the soil and put grass clipping mulch over them as they grew.

The plants died seemingly earl. The potatoes have the thickest, hardest skin I ever have seen. They taste OK and a few grew like two joined together and lots of big marble sized ones. Even daily automatic watering.........?????

Any suggestions of what I did wrong? Leo
 
Cuts may not hurt the taste, but they do take away some of the edible part of the potato. Personally, I like to bake them and eat the whole thing - skin and all. Those with cuts mean that I need to cut out some of that to get the dirt out of it.

When I pay retail prices for potatoes, I want them the way they should be. Free of cuts, properly graded, and preferably not washed.
 
The problem with onions is that the fad thing is sweet onions. IMHO, if you want to cut up an onion to put on your hot dog or one to slice on your burger, the sweet ones are fine. For any REAL cooking, the stronger the better!
 
I've about quit buying Russet potatoes and have gone to Red potatoes and especially Yukon gold potatoes.

Independent labs seem to be doing a much better job of inspecting consumer foods and issuing recalls than the USDA ever did. Next June the USDA might issue a warming that some brands of potatoes, lettuce, chicken or hamburger we are buying today in December could have been contaminated, if any remain uneaten throw them away.
 
Part of the reason is theres a potato ban on PEI potatoes. Millions upon hundreds of millions of pounds of PEI potatoes destined for the US table market sit in storage waiting for a trade dispute to be resolved.
 
Were these potatoes sourced from the eastern states that were so wet last summer? We dont buy spuds but next time I am in the store here in western Iowa I will take a peek at them. A few years ago our local store was stocking potatoes from Larsen Farms in Idaho. Their potatoes are raised in volcanic desert sand. There is no way to get them too wet. Larsens quick kill their potatoes by spraying sulfuric acid on the plants. There is definitely a unique small in the air when they are killing spuds. They claim it toughens the skin.

This post was edited by fixerupper on 12/28/2021 at 06:28 pm.
 
I can't comment on store bought potatoes as I've never had to buy them. I grow my own and store them in a cool basement room. They usually keep me going til well into summer and the new crop is soon ready. I've also heard that washing them is not advisable for long storage. Only problem I have is the scab is on most of them. I've been told it is from growing them on the same ground year after year. They do die off early from what I think is called "early blight" but does not seem to affect the long term storage.
 
We buy potatoes by the 50lb bag/$18.00
cvphoto112265.jpg

I keep them on the pantry shelves in the cellar stair, cool in there and they keep well.
cvphoto112266.jpg

As you can see they are a nice size, and no cuts or other marks. A 10lb bag at Walmart or other grocery stores will cost $5.99. Real ripoff, and potatoes in those bags are only half the size
 
Baked are my favorite in the fall find one thats about 2 feet long and 4 inches across bake it butter it and pepper thats supper
 
Tractor Vet, it is common knowledge for about the past 15 years Michigan has been sending their worst potatoes to Ohio! :<)
 
In a dry year it can be hard to harvest potatoes without bruising. A certain amount of soil is usually carried onto the harvester to help cushion the potatoes. When the soil is dry it all sifts out too soon.

Past that stage of harvest, it comes to the care made to not drop the potatoes too far.
 
We do all the time, around plants and trees. Both really seem to enjoy, as growth and overall health has really taken off. Also applied heavily around wild raspberry vines and had the best raspberries we've had in YEARS.

I would imagine there are some plants that should not have fresh-cut grasses applied, but haven't found them yet.
 
(quoted from post at 02:26:56 12/29/21) I raised a 50' row this year of some kind of potatoe and they were watered well. I barely covered them in the soil and put grass clipping mulch over them as they grew.

The plants died seemingly earl. The potatoes have the thickest, hardest skin I ever have seen. They taste OK and a few grew like two joined together and lots of big marble sized ones. Even daily automatic watering.........?????

Any suggestions of what I did wrong? Leo
Click to expand...

Leo. I don't have a lot of experience growing potatoes, but I did grow a few crops of them about 20 years ago. I tried several kinds but settled on Kennebec as the best for our use. These are the kind that most Potatoe chip makers use. I was not able to water my crop at all. I just hand weeded them and I would drag a small disc along side the hills with a garden tractor to keep the weeds down. When harvest time came around It was always a chore to dig them so I would hook up the single bottom plow to my Alice chalmers B and plowed very deep. the ground would lift up and split with the potatoes almost rolling out on top of the ground...Any way, thats how I did it!!....Ed
 
I bet they are the sweet onion variety. I noticed that they usually are quite a bit larger than regular (make you cry) yellow or white onions, and sell for quite a bit more per pound.

On onions and potatoes bought at the store, I find that keeping them in the refrigerator keeps them from sprouting and going bad. We have reds, Irish, and golden varieties. I usually buy the reds as they taste better and rate high in nourishment.
 
Sometimes I go all out with come cooked sausage sour cream cheese and butter and pepper thats one of my favorites
 
I have a lot of grass and I let it dry a day or two, then pick it up with a sweeper to lessen the cloud of dry grass flying around at the next cutting. I already paid about $3grand to replace an engine that sucks that stuff in. Sigh.

So I have a lot of dry grass available weekly and use it around the tomatoe, pepper, and pumpkins. This past season, I used it around these potatoes that did not turn out well.

I will get some from the store with indicated variety next planting. Seems like a lot of work for no more than this old couple eats!!
 
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