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OT How do you store your Potatoes

J

John B.

Well-known Member
I planted only a 35ft row of potatoes this spring and dug them today. What I wanted to ask is how do you all store your potatoes for the winter?
 
Thanks for the link PJH. I read everyone's post and I found it very helpful.

Thank you.
John B.
 
We always spread them out on a old carpet on a flat bed wagon. Tried to keep them a single potato deep. Let them dry completely off. NEVER WASH them. Just rub the extra dirt off. Then we put them in regular bushel baskets. These we store in a basement room under the porch of the house. It does not freeze but is dark and dry there.

I think the key is: cool, dark, and dry. You provide those three things and potatoes will keep for a long time.

I have friends that live in OK. They do not get near as cold as we do here in Iowa. They dry theirs like we do but they store them outside in a pile of straw. It looks like a mini hay stack. They have a high spot of dirt about a foot higher than the surrounding ground. They start by spreading a thick layer of straw. Then they put about six inches of potatoes then more straw. Just making sure to have a layer of long straw on top. It sheds the water like a thatched roof.

When they need potatoes to use they just "dig" them out keeping the top layer of straw to shed water. I have seen them still have good potatoes until June/July of the following year.
 
When I raised potatoes back in the 1980's I planted 5 rows of Kennebec and one row of red Bliss. The rows were 100 feet long. Since my basement was too warm I found an old upright freezer and buried it in my back yard. Never had any spuds to freeze. I never washed them. I used my Wards garden tractor when planting making nice furrows. I used it when it came time to get them out of the ground. My wife, daughter, and my MIL when she was living would scratch them from the dirt. I have a picture of my wife's mother driving a Farmall B when they farmed pulling a manure spreader. From a German family that moved here in the 1800's. My wife looks like her. Hal
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