[Tom Wagner]

Heather, in response to your comments and questions:

I haven't had the garden space for potatoes for a while.

I have no idea how big your garden is in Harrisburg, PA. but I think nearly everyone should find a place for a few potatoes. Even 100 potato plants could produce from 100 lbs. to perhaps over 300 lbs.!! If you can't eat that many pounds before they sprout in the basement, leave some in the ground and cover with straw just before hard freezes. Here is Western Washington I leave tons of potatoes in the ground all winter til April. I dug 500 lbs just today on several hundred varieties!

I'm creating a growing space BUT this house has a very small basement. I'm at a loss of how to maintain any potatoes that I would like to grow. I don't want to grow them and just watch them sprout before I use them.

My suggestion is to grow enough to eat til Christmas. If your storage is not cool enough the sprouting will rob valuable nutrients from the tubers.

What works best for you regarding potato storage in the fall. Especially if you don't have a rootceller?

Since potatoes like to be kept cool, like under 40 F. and rather high humidity with some ventilation, you may have a problem getting the conditions you want past Christmas. You could plant later, thus harvesting just as cool weather hits in Harrisburg. The sprouting time would be much later since potatoes have a natural rest period of a few months. The outdoors straw might work for you if you soil is well drained. I like potato flavor in soil storage better than cellars anyway. I am lucky that I borrow space in a two million dollar potato cold storage facility which is kept cold until May.

How do you keep them from sprouting and being useless in the spring for planting?

If you are the average homeowner without proper storage I wouldn't advise doing this anyway. Why save your own potatoes for planting when you probably should buy clean certified seed potatoes just to be safe.
I have some potatoes in cold storage that are from August 2005. I treated them with sprout inhibitors as they went through the wash line at the packing plant. They went thru the cold storage time til May 2006 at which time they were kept at ambient temperatures til Aug 15, 2006 when the cooler was turned on again. At this date they are flacid but covered with many sprouts and very healthy. The variety? Azul Toro. I do this from time to time with certain varieties that I maintain for years in order to kill any viruses. The half life of viruses is such that if you keep potatoes for nearly two years the viruses will die off naturally. That is how is get virus-free potato clones without the expensive lab meristem cleanup.

Tom