Keeping potatoes

It is about time to dig potatoes here. I can never get them to last. I can make a field of wheat grow but I can't keep my potatoes from sprouting in a month's time! What are some of my options?

I can keep them down the cellar (which is what I usually do), but that's all it really is. It is damp and the bugs could get to them. There is some light down there as well. Aren't they supposed to be in the dark?

I had also considered putting them in a bucket and lowering it down into the cistern. Not all the way into the water, but just above it which is about 15 feet below ground level now. Only light is throught the slats on the top door.

What will make them keep the longest? I know the easy stuff like 'don't wash them'. I'm talking about something that will get me some home grown potatoes at Thanksgiving.

Temperature is key. Ideally, a root cellar that stays cool and dark keeps potatoes from sprouting. I dig them and cure them in the sun for a couple of days, then put them in burlap bags and hang them in the basement. They will keep until November.I read where the preferred temps are below 55 down to 35.

When I was a kid the potato farmers stored them in long low barns with a roof but no sides. I assume that the floor was well below ground level in order for it to be cool during warm weather, and above freezing when cold.

BIL keeps them in his well pit. My dad built a Styrofoam cooler in his garage and kept them in paper, I think.

Larry

I do not know were you live but, Here in Ont. Can. we do not dig our potatoes until fall, Sept. or Oct. Our plants have started to die down now, and the potatoes will keep just fine where they are till fall. I store my potatoes in the cellar of our 100 year old farm house, you know the kind. With no heat source, but still not below freezing . The other key to making potatoes store well is, and this is a big one , ventilation. Think of potatoes like you would grain, very high in moisture , and if ventilated they will not heat. But if you put them in a closed, air restricted container , the moisture that they will express will condense and the potatoes will rot. I can keep potatoes through from Oct. till planting time in the spring, around April. Bruce

You must be in a warm climate. I store mine in the coolest corner of my celler and they will keep until April or May of the next year before they start to sprout and go soft. How many bushels are you talking about? At the coldest times of the winter I have to let some warm air into the bin the keep them from freezing. Sounds to me like you need a good root celler or to find an old single axle truck with a working reefer. If you don't have any other way to store them, as soon as they show any signs of sprouting, can them in quart jars. We start canning our potatoes about late March or early April. We generally can about 100 quarts. That will get us through the summer to the new crop.

Cut the potatos into small chunks, add a teaspoon of canning salt (NOT table salt) per quart jar, 1/2 teaspoon for a pint jar, fill with hot water and place in a pressure canner for the prescribed time.

Disclaimer: All of the "experts" tell you you can't can non-acid veggeis and meats in a water bath canner. I'd have liked to see you try to tell that to my mother and/or both of my grandmothers! Not only would your ears burn from the chewing out you'd have got, but more'n likely you'd be nursing a big cast iron skillet goose egg on the side of your head and been ordered out of their kitchens. Or carried out. (chuckle)

They definitely need to be in the dark along with cool temps. Sooner or later they will start to sprout no matter what. When they do pick off the sprouts and put them back in storage. It will get you another month depending on storage conditions.

We keep our white potatoes in an old root cellar. It's dark and damp. We have the best luck if we put them in milk crates, and set the crates off of the floor on bricks (2 inches). They keep fair in 5 gallon buckets, but the crates are best for us. We're just now cleaning last years crop out. Still find a few firm ones, but sprouty and soft for the most part. They won't keep worth a hoot in the basement of the house, but sweet potatoes keep good there. And sweet potatoes will not keep in the cellar where we store the whites. It's a trial and error learning process here.

We harvest our potatoes after the first frost or when the plants are completely dead, whichever comes first. We keep ours in a root cellar with no problems but ours does have ventilation. Cool, dry and dark are essential things to keep potatoes from sprouting. An old wife's tale that seems to work for me is putting a few apples on a plate on top of your potatoes. They do not have to be anything special fresh or other wise. The tale is that as the apples rot they displace the oxygen and prevent sprouting. It may be a coincidence but I have seen it more than once of the pile of potatoes with the apples on them had fewer sprouters or sprouted later than the other piles. We just use the damaged or fallen apples from our apple tree. Results may vary!

I'm gonna try that apple trick.

We keep our potato warehouses at 38-40 degrees and keep air circulating constantly with at least 96% humidified air
We dig in September, and store unit April/May.

I have never had much luck keeping them past Christmas or so. Now I can them, you need a pressure canner, fast and easy to do, they keep for years.

Always put them in the cellar on a old table and spread lime over all them. Always had them gone before winter was over.

where do you live? Unless you are expecting a hard freeze soon, leave the potatoes in the ground till fall. dig when soil and tuber temps are much cooler.

then for storing: completely dark, humid air, but no free moisture. you want the surface of the tubers to stay dry. avoid fast changes in temperature. you want cool and good air circulation.

Old deep freeze works great,put in a small amount of dry hay,several potatoes,layer of hay,more potatoes repeat till full cover the top with a old quilt etc.leave the lid up 1/2 inch for air till cold weather and then shut it.

Perfect!

I remember the same thing. One farmer that grew more potatoes than he could fit in storage buried them in a bulldozed area and covered them with 12 inches of dirt.