Where do you keep your potatoes?

[Kwings]

I want to grow potatoes this year, i grew some last year and they did OK but i want to plan a lot more this year but i don't know where i would keep them all.

I currently keep all my potatoes in the slide out drawer in my fridge with a clean dry wash cloth (or paper towel) on top and on the bottom to keep moisture out. They keep for a very long time, just go in and toss anything gathering a bit of mold and thats about it.

But i want to grow A LOT of potatoes so how can i keep them? I may be able to acquire a second fridge to put in the garage through CL or other sites like that but besides a second fridge what other options do i have?

Thanks!

[Wisconsin Ann]

I keep ours in paper sacks in the basement. It's a constant 53F and slightly humid. They keep well. Plenty of air flow.

As a teen, I dug a hole in the side of the hill in the backyard, put in a 55gallon drum with holes cut out of it and then covered with wire 1/4inch screen, built an insulated top for it, and we kept the potatoes there over winter. Worked great.

[7thswan]

I keep mine in paper boxes, the boxes are produce boxes and have holes. The stay in the cement floored unheated pantry. Put 450 lbs(3 kinds) in there in the fall. I dried them for about 1 hr. as I dug them before putting them in the boxes. Keep them from light. They are doing fine and will plant some of the leftovers and cann some when spring gets here.

[Welshmom]

We put ours in wooden produce crates in the basement.

[Immaculate Sublimity]

7thswan I assume your pantry gets some sort of house heat, not like a garage or shed where things would freeze? I'd like to try my hand at planting some this year, but my concern is storage... I have NO place to put them inside. and nothing but a crawl space under the house that DOES freeze. I could probably - like the others said- get a second fridge or freezer and put it in the shed and store them in there , if that would work.

[Beeman]

A friend had an old chest freezer that didn't work. I took it and put it at the edge of the woods behind the house, painted camo. I put some vents in it and used plastic crates with boards between to stack it full of potatoes. Worked OK.

[suitcase_sally]

I have an insulated and heated pole barn with a concrete floor. Due to the lay of the land, one back corner is above grade level by about 18". I have three very large crocks (20 -30 gallon size) that I have in that corner which has been partioned off from the rest of the barn. The crocks are sitting on some 1 x 3's to keep them off the concrete. I sorted my potatoes by size and variety and put them in large doubled grocery bags (paper) and lowered them into the crocks, that way I can get to the size I want for various situations (you don't want the tiny ones for baking, those go in to the slo cooker for pot roast.) Last year I had the potatoes in wooden boxes and made the mistake of sitting them on the concrete and the ones on the bottom froze - not pretty. I was surprised because the room wasn't that cold - just the concrete floor. This year I am using the crocks. It's about 45º in the room.

I have done Beeman's method when I lived in California and had hillsides. None here where I am now.

Immaculate, in Michigan a fridge in the shed will freeze.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I keep ours in the basement in plastic milk crates or big mesh bags.
When I grow alot I also like to freeze some, they are great & ready to cook that way & don't go bad.
I wash them good, cut them up in bite size chunks, put in a big bowl & drizzle while stirring enough Olive Oil to coat them well(at this time I add parsley too but you can add any herbs you like) & put them in freezer bags, enough for a meal for the 2 of us.
They never turn black(Ithink it's the oil) & then just roast them in the oven on a tray about 30 minutes or so at 400 degrees. You can also fry them too after you thaw them a bit if you want to.

[Yvonne's hubby]

It sounds to me like you need a root cellar. Taters, carrots, parsnips, turnips and other root crops, and even cabbage keeps quite well in a cellar. It doesnt have to be anything large, but it does need to be kept from freezing, ventilated and light tight. You could dig a hole deep enough to put a 55 gallon barrel in, backfill around the barrel just to the top, create a vent with a sink drain "trap" in the lid, then cover it with a couple bales of old hay or straw leaving just the vent pipe sticking out. If you put your taters in buckets and lower them on a short rope it makes it easy to get them out when needed.

[Forerunner]

Root cellar or basement. Never store in plastic buckets as they hold too much moisture and that encourages rot. Wood, cardboard, anything slatted to allow air flow, burlap sacks....all work so long as that cool, slightly moist atmosphere is maintained.
Oh, and keep them in the dark. They'll sprout aggressively, otherwise.

[Horseyrider]

I use a root cellar now. But many years ago I stored them under the bed. A neighbor was getting rid of an old dresser with a broken top so I asked for the drawers. I lined them in newspaper and put the taters down in single layers between more newspaper. Then I slid them under the bed. It's not as good as a root cellar, but it got us through a couple of years until we moved here.

[TnAndy]

Root cellar, in plastic tote type crates ( like milk crates ).

And may I say Yukon Golds keep GREAT compared to Kennebec white potatoes. 2nd year we've tried that variety.

Got some out the other day, and they were as firm and crisp as the day they went in the cellar....where as the Kennebec always turn "rubbery" with LOTS of sprouts by now.

[7thswan]

Originally Posted by Immaculate Sublimity

7thswan I assume your pantry gets some sort of house heat, not like a garage or shed where things would freeze? I'd like to try my hand at planting some this year, but my concern is storage... I have NO place to put them inside. and nothing but a crawl space under the house that DOES freeze. I could probably - like the others said- get a second fridge or freezer and put it in the shed and store them in there , if that would work.

Yes it does get some heat, but it is not heated, we heat 100% with wood. Is it possible to put a trap door in you floor somewhere and build a insulated box up against the floor from the bottem. Just throwing out thoughts.ps... in the door on the floor you could put a vent that would let some heat down into the potatoes. Remember you could also cann potatoes,just incase.

[Kris in MI]

I keep mine in my root cellar, which is unheated and was dug under the wrap-around front porch. It's never gone below freezing, even the winter where daytime highs in January were below 30 degrees the entire month. In the summer it does heat up to 55 or 60, but there's no taters in the cellar mid-summer.

My grandparents lived in SE Ohio and used to keep theirs in a big pile in one corner of their barn. The outer ones sometimes froze, but the inner ones were okay.

[Wayne02]

Question with regard to the buried 55 gallon drum or old broken freezer concept, using the pvc p-trap in the top as a rain proof vent. One of these concepts might work for a situation we have coming up this year.

We will hopefully end up with a large crop of potatoes (likely the yukon golds) that will need to be stored right near the point of harvest, i.e out in the back 40, in or on the ground. These will be exposed to critters so may need some security? Do deer, raccoon, chipmunks/squirrels go after potato's?

The buried 55 gallon drum with the stock clamp-on steel lid would probably be secure enough, but I would think the rectangular shape of the chest freezer might be more user friendly in terms of storing, organizing and retrieving the spuds? Probably have to put a padlock on the lid.

Some folks have mentioned putting holes in the buried drum, what are these for?

Thanks

[shanzone2001]

I have an old dresser that I want to find a use for.
Can I keep the drawers in the dresser (in the root cellar) and fill them with potatoes, or do potatoes need more air than that???

[Ravenlost]

When I was growing up we kept potatoes in a barn stall. We would spread hay first (dirt floor in stall) then spread the potatoes out on top of the hay. Next Daddy would sprinkle them with lime and then we'd cover them with more hay.

I keep mine in the attic, in cardboard boxes with layers of hay between them.

[Rustaholic]

All my growing up years we always stored our taters in the potato bins in the basement.
Just huge wooden boxes with slanted lids.
Open the lid then you could reach in and undo a latch and the front of each bin would open like a door.
That was nice for cleaning them out each year for the new batch.
There were four large bins all built together.
There were five of us and we ate taters every day.
My step-father ate taters for every meal.
365 days per year.
We planted a lot of taters.
We grew corn to feed pigs then we butchered the pigs and traded most of the pork for beef.
We actually grew most of what we ate.
Mom canned, froze and baked.
Five days per week a supper meal was boiled taters, a good gravy, steak, two vegetables and fruit for desert.
The steak we traded pork for and all the rest we grew.

[AnnieinBC]

We keep our potatoes in empty paper feed bags, stored down in our cold room. We need to keep the temperature between 32 and 40F, which we do by adjusting the venting that goes to the outside.

Potatoes can keep many months stored like this. We sort ours in the field, so we don't have any with cuts or rot going down into the cold room....just makes things easier all the way around.

[fffarmergirl]

We have a root cellar-type basement under the house where we've been storing our root crops, but we learned our lesson the hard way this year. The doors going down to it need to be air tight and kept closed! Cold air flows downward and fills from the bottom up - like water. We had our potatoes stored on a stone ledge a good 4 feet off the ground, but one -30 night the doors weren't shut and the cold reached all the way up to our potatoes. Half of them froze badly and the rest got "frost bite." We canned the frozen ones up in our homemade dog food. The ones that seemed OK, we canned for our own use. On the bright side, it's quick & easy to make mashed potatoes from the canned ones.