How Do I Store Potatoes?

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I've read so many books on storing food from the garden that now I have confused myself. I know I can go look this up but I wanted to ask "Them's That's Doing" instead. I'm ready to go dig up my potatoes. I've been holding off as long as I can because they are keeping very well in the ground here in Virginia but I know the freezing tempuratures will be arriving soon. I will keep some in the ground and cover them with a mulch, but I wanted to know what was the best way you found to store your potatoes that you dig up?

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), November 07, 2000

Answers

Colleen, we dig ours and knock only the big clumps of dirt off. We put them in 5 gallon buckets and store them in a hallway in our basement They are pretty cool and in the dark. The dirt dries and a lot of it falls of just while we're grabbing out what we need to use. We'll rub off any major dirt left on them back into the bucket. A quick scrub at the kitchen sink and they're ready to go. We used to have a potato washing set-up, basically just a perfed metal screen set on top of a wheelbarrow. We'd hose and scrub the potatoes then trundle the wheelbarrow away from the hydrant to dump the water and dirt. We decided it was too cold and miserable a job. We then tried working a little harder in the garden knocking and rubbing dirt/mud off the potatoes. Decided that was too cold and miserable a job too. Frequently the skin would get rubbed off in spots, or damaged, reducing the storing qualities of the potatoes. So we've just been dumping dirty potatoes in 5 gallon buckets for years now and Mr. Potatohead is happy with the results. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), November 07, 2000.

I use plastic laundry baskets for storing the potatoes. They are inexpensive to buy, easy to clean, and provide good ventilation. After digging and the skins harden, I layer my potatoes with straw in the laundry baskets and put them in the cellar. I have no problem keeping them until the next year although about April/May they begin looking kind of funky.

-- Marci (ajourend@libby.org), November 08, 2000.

The most important part of potatoe storage is keeping them in the dark. Personally, I store mine in the crawlspace beneath my house. This works great for me.

-- Mark M (Magicmark85@aol.com), November 08, 2000.

Colleen, We have had great luck storing our potatoes in my husbands unheated walk-in closet. We put them in feed sacks to store. this year my husband decided he was tired of 1000+ lbs of potatoes in his way, and built a great fruit cellar in a hill by our house. the temperature is around 54 degrees and the humidity about 80% and they have done fine the last month and a half. I agree with previous note about storing in the dark. About the middle of January we sprout the potatoes and sort them out, they usually keep very well until time to plant again. We always dig our first potatoes on the 4th of July, and continue digging from then on. My goal has been to never buy potatoes again from a store,they seem so hard and dried out, compared to home-grown. I hope this ingormation is useful to you!

-- Melissa Norris (cmnorris@1st.net), November 13, 2000.

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