Storing grown potatoes from the garden?

[nao57]

So... I wanted to ask this early on... before winter comes so I can be more prepared...

I'd heard you store potatoes in cool dark places like basements and keep them dry.

Well, that doesn't seem to always work. I don't know why. Something about our basement they don't seem to last very long stored that way. Produce stored in our basement for some reason spoils quicker than it should.

Have any of you run into this? And what do you suggest?

And there's this idea out there of storing potatoes outside in a potato (irish) clamp. The idea is you put them in a pile then cover it with straw and earth. Then you have an opening at the top for air circulation.

Does a potato clamp not work in snowy winter states? And what happens when you store outside when you have cold and wet together? Do potato clamps have to be dry?

I feel like I lack understanding on how to store potatoes outside in a garage or whatever, even though I've looked at the book definition simple answer of storing in cool, dark place. In APPLICATION, you are gambling like all 8 months of your work just on ... something that could easily not work if you don't do it right, or have problems. That's a lot to lose on a gamble...

 

[saysfaa]

A thermometer and hydrometer would help.

Too dry is as much of a problem as too wet.

Cuts and bruises can be a problem; if there are any then soiling can spread to others. If you see any going bad or smell it, then you need to sort out those and ones they are touching if you catch it early enough. If rot starts getting away from you then you need to sort the whole pile/crate/box.

If you check them periodically (and often enough) then you can change the location or conditions before losing them all.

Other foods stored nearby can be a problem because of the gasses they give off. Apples and onions are notorious for this. I don't remember which things can be stored together but two root cellars are enough to keep things separated for that reason or at least are much better than one.

Storing them under straw and dirt works in cold, snowy places. You need the dirt deep enough to keep the potatoes from freezing. We didn't have an air vent and didn't have problems but it can be hard to get to them.

My parents kept potatoes in an unused well pit and in the coolest part of the living area of their house. My grandparents had a real root cellar. My sister uses a cold storage room (thickly insulated room in a pole barn). One neighbor used the space in the basement of an old fashioned big barn. All of these are in a damp climate. In the spaces that aren't completely dark, blankets are laid over the potatoes. Blankets can also protect one pile/crate from a potato going bad in another pile or at least enough to give you more time to notice a problem while it is a small problem.

 

[Sally PB]

I have been storing my potatoes in my basement, as that's the best place I have. They're in a cardboard box, and I've been draping a heavy blanket over them to block out the low level of light that's there.

I don't have issues with rot, but for some reason, by Jan/Feb, they start to sprout. By March, some have sprouts growing out of them that are 6-12"!

We are looking into doing something else with them this year. I throw out WAAAAY too many potatoes because of this.

One thing we're going to do is eat more potatoes during the fall.

Commercial potatoes are treated with something to keep from sprouting. Does anyone know if there's anything gardeners can use to the same end? Something safe to use and have on hand, of course.

I'm off to see if google knows...

 

[Sally PB]

https://www.uidaho.edu/-/media/uida...er, nearly all,inhibitor in the United States.

Well, that's interesting. Peppermint and spearmint show promise.
"Mint oils
Peppermint and spearmint oils applied in storage can be used as effective sprout suppressants (Figure 1). A wick application of these oils gave better sprout control than thermal or cold aerosol applications. This “low-tech” wick method can be as simple as placing a small piece of blotter paper saturated with mint oil in the box of potatoes."

One problem... neither hubby nor I really like the smell of mint. I'm not sure if the oil would give off much smell. Anyone have any experience with that?

Other sources say good air circulation and storing them away from onions is important. Last year, I had the onions in a different room, but the taters still sprouted.

This is from a Reddit post:
"... the ideal storage temperature for potatoes, which is about 40 degrees. For every increase in 10 degrees, you lose about a month of dormancy."

My basement is chilly in the winter, but nowhere near that cold.

 

[nao57]

A thermometer and hydrometer would help.

Too dry is as much of a problem as too wet.

Cuts and bruises can be a problem; if there are any then soiling can spread to others. If you see any going bad or smell it, then you need to sort out those and ones they are touching if you catch it early enough. If rot starts getting away from you then you need to sort the whole pile/crate/box.

If you check them periodically (and often enough) then you can change the location or conditions before losing them all.

Other foods stored nearby can be a problem because of the gasses they give off. Apples and onions are notorious for this. I don't remember which things can be stored together but two root cellars are enough to keep things separated for that reason or at least are much better than one.

Storing them under straw and dirt works in cold, snowy places. You need the dirt deep enough to keep the potatoes from freezing. We didn't have an air vent and didn't have problems but it can be hard to get to them.

My parents kept potatoes in an unused well pit and in the coolest part of the living area of their house. My grandparents had a real root cellar. My sister uses a cold storage room (thickly insulated room in a pole barn). One neighbor used the space in the basement of an old fashioned big barn. All of these are in a damp climate. In the spaces that aren't completely dark, blankets are laid over the potatoes. Blankets can also protect one pile/crate from a potato going bad in another pile or at least enough to give you more time to notice a problem while it is a small problem.

Thank you.

Any idea how deep a cellar needs to be to work right?

 

[nao57]

I have been storing my potatoes in my basement, as that's the best place I have. They're in a cardboard box, and I've been draping a heavy blanket over them to block out the low level of light that's there.

I don't have issues with rot, but for some reason, by Jan/Feb, they start to sprout. By March, some have sprouts growing out of them that are 6-12"!

We are looking into doing something else with them this year. I throw out WAAAAY too many potatoes because of this.

One thing we're going to do is eat more potatoes during the fall.

Commercial potatoes are treated with something to keep from sprouting. Does anyone know if there's anything gardeners can use to the same end? Something safe to use and have on hand, of course.

I'm off to see if google knows...

sprouting while in storage make perfect seed potatoes. u can do this with them. I think in coming years,...even possibly next year not many people will be throwing anything food away because the economy is such a train wreck.

You can plant commercial potatoes in your garden just fine. They will sprout. i think the only thing the treatment does is delay them a bit. You don't have to buy anything SPECIAL for potato seed. Also what you can then do is the season after that, slowly transition to using more of your own grown potatoes, and just up the %s each season of how many are genuinely homegrown 'seed'. There's no reason you can't use commercial potatoes.

And to be specific there is a citeworthy example; a US company tried to over and sue a bunch of poor farmers over in India just a few years ago, because of them growing their 'special' blend of potatoes. They argued they didn't have the right to 'steal' what was theirs. The case was lost by the US company; and along with it, it helped give the world a view of 'the ugly americans', where these farmers were barely suriviving and had nothing pretty much. The point of this example is that they used the commercial strains in the US and were getting good yields from them. And they gave us more evidence to not trust big corporations.

 

[nao57]

Part of what has gotten my interest of growing potatoes lately... I wanted to post about this. By now many of you saw that there was a water closure on 500,000 acres in Idaho recently. Well people did research on that and found that basically some big tech company had muscled in to steal the water so they could open up a big cobalt battery mine and processing setup. So they stole all that water, because supposedly its used for that setup and to cool it, when the temperatures go up and other things. Well they kind of hid that from the public. And some people question if that's proof. But people noticed that the place in question was opening its operations at the same time the water got shut off.

Now when you do the math. You can actually look up how many potatoes Idaho produces. Then you can also pull up the next top 9 other states and their production figures. You also see the same article quote that Idaho was expected to boost its production an extra 20% this year. So you factor that in, and do the math... and what the math says is that between 29% up to 35% of the entire country's potatoes come from this area where these guys just decided to muscle and push a bunch of people away and kill their farms by shutting off the water. That's roughly 30%+ of the ENTIRE country's potato supply.

And its absolutely amazing that people could do this and that nobody even called them out on it. They had news articles of the farmers protesting and saying hey if you do this it will be really bad. But nobody actually came forward and showed numbers of how much of the entire country's food was coming out of the areas where they stole all this water.

This is... what the country is turning into. And its kind of despicable. So we need to be doing our best to be self sufficient now. Grow and make everything we can at home. Because at the snap of the fingers of some robber baron elite, it can all get stolen just like that.

 

[canne50]

So... I wanted to ask this early on... before winter comes so I can be more prepared...

I'd heard you store potatoes in cool dark places like basements and keep them dry.

Well, that doesn't seem to always work. I don't know why. Something about our basement they don't seem to last very long stored that way. Produce stored in our basement for some reason spoils quicker than it should.

Have any of you run into this? And what do you suggest?

And there's this idea out there of storing potatoes outside in a potato (irish) clamp. The idea is you put them in a pile then cover it with straw and earth. Then you have an opening at the top for air circulation.

Does a potato clamp not work in snowy winter states? And what happens when you store outside when you have cold and wet together? Do potato clamps have to be dry?

I feel like I lack understanding on how to store potatoes outside in a garage or whatever, even though I've looked at the book definition simple answer of storing in cool, dark place. In APPLICATION, you are gambling like all 8 months of your work just on ... something that could easily not work if you don't do it right, or have problems. That's a lot to lose on a gamble...

Growing up in SE Arkansas, my uncle laid tin sheets under the 2-3' raised part of our house. He'd spread the potatoes out there with all sides open to cure. Then storage became the well house for winter. That cure time is most important.
Best to you!

 

[nao57]

Growing up in SE Arkansas, my uncle laid tin sheets under the 2-3' raised part of our house. He'd spread the potatoes out there with all sides open to cure. Then storage became the well house for winter. That cure time is most important.
Best to you!

Thank you very much! And to u!

 

[saysfaa]

Thank you.

Any idea how deep a cellar needs to be to work right?

It just needs to not freeze. However deep that is where you live, modified by any insulation around anything above the frost line in your location.