Potato Storage

I've just dug up a bunch of Yukon Gold and Kennebec and want advice on potato storage. I read that they should be stored in a cool place and need circulation. I placed about 7 in a small plastic bag two days ago and put them in my garage with the idea that I would get to them later and lay them out on a board in the garage. After two days though I was too late. I assume due to moisture they were already damp and some sort of mushy.

I'm looking for ideas on how to store them for longer use.

Alabama is like SC hot and humid. But that plastic bag did not allow air flow.

Basement, not a stagnant humid one? Air conditioned porch? Under barn, house, shed on a North side, with good air flow... are good places.

Fix them where air can get around them and under them. Stiff pine straw
between the layers and between the taters leave plenty of air flow.

Dark is your next thought. The do not sprout when they do not get much light. You know they sprout in the house, so you need less light than that.

My Mom told me that my grandaddy burried them in a mound of sandy soil by surrounding them with pine straw in a pile, covering them with pine straw then sandy dirt and a couple pieces of tin a foot or two above to keep the rain off and prevent heat build up.

These are some ideas anyway.

root cellar, basement. no sun. somewhere cool and dark. sun will sunburn them (turn green) and green part is poisonous. allow good air flow (no plastic bags)

Hambone and Len,

Thanks for answering my basic question. I'm trying to get the right wording here to adequately describe what I have here but . . . if you go down to my walkout basement there is a door which goes to the part of the house which is a stand-up crawl space. The dirt is covered in plastic.

I've put some potatoes in one of those old-fashioned milk plastic containers on a rock which will allow air to circulate underneath and the space is dark but it doesn't hold a lot of potatoes.

Any suggestions for how I store my two long rows of potatoes I haven't dug up yet? My wife and I went to "Bed, Bath, and Beyond" and found some hanging mesh metal baskets but each unit (3 baskets would not hold very many potatoes and they end up being expensive.

Thanks again for the advice,

Jeff

they have those hanging baskets at Wal-mart. They are much less expensive there.

as a kid my dad just put ours on the pool table in the basement.
i think you would be fine just piling them on the plastic in the standup crawl space.
as long as they stay dry, cool and dark, i think you will be fine.
i've hauled boxed potatoes in a van trailer with vents. I think the vents allow any moisture released from the spuds to be dispersed and not kept close to the potato to cause rot.
and also for any gases to be released.
in the stores they come in or are sold in boxes, plastic bags, and they have holes(vents)in them. i hope this has helped jeff

Can you get some of those fruit/vegetable boxes from the local supermarket? The ones with the nice round holes in the sides and tops. That way you could stack them up, just making sure that there was space between them for air circulation. Or the large mesh bags that the onions come in. My grandma used to use the mesh bags, saved them from year to year. After filling them she would hang them from the ceiling of her storm cellar. Talk to the fellow in the produce section and see if they will save you some of those boxes and/or mesh bags.

Or failing that, have you got a sewing machine? Go to the local fabric store and look for cheap open-mesh type fabric - maybe curtain material on sale, just be sure it is sturdy. That usually comes fairly wide. Cut some rectangles, sew up the sides, tie a string around the top, and hang them. You could hang them at several levels and get lots of them up that way.

As far as the green tinge being poison that is true, but don't throw away the potatoes for that reason alone. Just be sure that before cooking them you peel them well enough that the green is all gone. Same if they sprout. Just be sure that in peeling them you cut deep enough to remove the whole sprout. That's what that little pointy end on the potato peeler is for, to cut those eyes/sprouts out.

Karen

How about sweet potatoe storage? I planted as many sweet potatoes as white potatoes. Don't have root cellar yet, nor basement.

Robin

Do you have a dark closet or garage?

Karen

No closet with any room to spare. What about under a kitchen counter away from the sink? It's cool and probably has a little less humidity on that end of the kitchen in the winter. I think I remember reading somewhere, potatoes (white & sweet) need to cure for a few days in the sun. Is that right?

no no no sun!
turn green (sunburn) and are poisonous!
lol
maybe just can them?

Glendalekid and All,

I really like your suggestion. I'll go to my local Publix grocery store and talk to them about boxes for potatoes and whatever they receive onions in. I have lots of potatoes I haven't dug up yet so they would be perfect. In addition, I'll put them in my "walk-up crawl space on top of my plastic.

Again, I want to thank everyone for their advice. This is my second year growing onions and potatoes and after I harvested my first year crop of the two they too quickly rotted.

Jeff

Jeff,

If your onions are the sweet kind, Vidalia or something like that, they do not keep well. They sprout no matter what you do. However, they can be chopped or sliced and freeze very nicely for use in cooking. The non-sweet, regular onions should keep all winter for you as long as they, like the potatoes, are kept dry and have air circulation around them.

Karen

One other thought. Get the open weave "clothes" sacks with the draw string and hang them up by a nail in the rafters above. You'll have to calculate what weight you can deal with for the size of the bags.

The open weave plastic "Oranges" bags would work for this too.

Well, the onions are "Texas Sweet." I understand chopping and dicing but how do you then freeze them?

Jeff

After you chop or slice them up, put them in ziploc bags. You could freeze them in muffin tins or something similar, then take them out and them put into ziploc bags for easier storage. This way you can take out just the amount you need. Try a couple and see how you like them. I use small bags with the amount I think most recipes will use. For cooking, you can then use them just as you would fresh chopped ones. For soups, stews, or sauces just put them in frozen. They will defrost while cooking. For something like meatloaf that they would need to be mixed all through, thaw them first. They would, of course, not work for salads and things like that.

I don't know of any way to hold over sweet onions without having them go bad from sprouting. I knew a fellow in WA who tried by putting the onions in a sack to store them through the winter under his house. In no time at all, they were unusable. If anyone does know a way, I would sure like to hear about it.

Karen

Thanks Karen,

I'm buying some Ziplock sandwich size bags today and will give it a try.

Jeff

I've stored both sweet and irish potatoes successfully in the Appalachian area of Tennessee/Virginia--onions, too.

Hilling potatoes works so well they come out in spring crisp as they went in. Start with a short mound of dirt--size of a washtub for 5 bushels. that's to keep ground water out. Pour potatoes in a pile. Cover with straw--thicker the better. Cover the straw with a few inches of dirt use frost level to judge how thick. Cover all with something waterproof. I used old pieces of rusty tin I happened to have. To get potatoes in the winter without disturbing the pile, insert a piece of stove pipe in botton before hilling. Stuff it with insulation, like an old gunney sack, and block opening with something mice can't easily penetrate, like a pie plate. Reach in and pull out fresh potatoes all winter. I've made bins in basements and cellars, but with the mound method the potatoes don't shrivel and sprout for much longer.

Sweet potatoes. I kept a bushel in paper bags in a chiffirobe in my bedroom and they lasted all winter. We used to lay onions loose on bales of hay in the barn.

My grandmother used to keep her potatoes, apples, regular onions, carrots, winter squash, and other things in her storm cellar all winter.

But sweet onions, I have yet to see kept successfully for any length of time. Were your onions the sweet kind, like Vidalias or Texas Sweet?

Karen

Plumbbobline, thanks for the sweet potatoe info. We eat a lot of baked sweet potatoes, but the ones in the stores around here are awful.

Appreciate the mound info too. I had heard of mounding, but not how to get to them without uncovering everything.

I read that after pulling up onions, lay them in the sun for a few days with the stems on. Then, braid the stems together, putting one onion on top of another as you work your way up with the braid. Tie off at top with a string and hang in the kitchen. When you need an onion just pull the one on the bottom straight down. The others are suppose to stay in place.

The whole sweet onion thing. I can remember my mom telling me my grandma would put her onions in the dehydrator for a few hours and then storing them in the storm cellar and i can always remember her having me go down and grab one.I have never tried this cuz Im not a big onion eater so you'll just have to experiment with it.

I like the hilling idea, but what about northern climates? We get quite a lot of snow (well we did last winter) and it's common to get down to -25F at night here, would that even work?

I'm asking because we've got a water problem in our basement and it's quite humid. The only other option I would have is the closet in our upstairs second bedroom, but once again, that's in the house proper and not near an outside wall so it doesn't get as cool as I think it should.

to save you onions save old stockings or hose put one onion in and tie a knot add an onion, tie a knot etc. etc.
we've stored them like that for years, we just hang them somewhere with low humidity and very little sun light, most of our hang in the laundry room close to the kitchen and relatively dry.

Consult a basic text: Putting Food By, by J. Greene, R. Hertzberbg, B. Vaughan; 420 pages of very useful and tested info, widely used and printed since 1973, latest update (I think) 1991, pb $11.00.
Page 370-371 charts ideal conditions (temp./humidity/air circulation), indoor/outdoor methods for fall- spring storage/cellaring of various produce.
Offers equally professional info on using, canning, freezing of any produce or animal products.
I grew up on a remote Colorado ranch and we fixed everything and raised everything, butchered, cured and froze our meats, made our own soap, baked our bread, canned and stored produce, went to small country school. Sparse neighbors did things together; we knew that if you don't do it right the first time, you may not be around for a second chance.