Storing potatoes

I have had several questions about how in the world do we store all those potatoes and what in the world do we do with all those potatoes anyway?

First how do we utilize 500 pounds of potatoes?  I need 50 pounds for next years planting in order to realize a harvest of this size.  I give away potatoes as gifts – lets say, 100 pounds there.  That leaves me with approximately 350 pounds to last until next May or June.  I worry we will run out, it probably looks like a lot to you.  Because we strive to grow the food we need for the entire year, we see the whole years worth at one time, and it is metered out in small amounts until the stockpile is gone.  Whereas, if you shop at the farmers market or store, or belong to a CSA you see only a weeks worth or a little more.  It is hard to imagine how much food you need to last months when you only deal with a small amount at each time.  I get this question a lot when we have potential beef customers.  A common statement is, “we don’t eat more than 10 pounds of beef a year -how could we possibly eat 100 pounds?”  Usually these type of people never do buy beef from us, and they are never honest with themselves either about how much beef they eat.  Since they don’t count the multitudes of hamburgers they buy as beef.  Same with potatoes, when you purchase ready made soups and meals at the store, and the ingredient list includes potatoes, you are indeed eating potatoes.  It adds up, one potato at a time.

So how to store potatoes and make them last?  Potatoes need  high humidity, total darkness and protection from freezing.  That leaves out most modern homes, basements and garages.  Even our basement is too warm, and our house is always on the cool side.  The ideal temperature is around 45 degrees.  Any warmer the potatoes break dormancy and start to sprout – if it is much cooler than 45 degrees the starch in potatoes turns to sugar.  Not good – especially if you’re watching your waistline.   To combat the starch to sugar thing, I bring in a box of potatoes and store them in the basement.  After a few days of 50 degrees the sugar reverts to starch again.

Anyway, I store mine in the barn in “root cellar” made from stacked straw bales.  Straw bales are inexpensive, easy to find, easy to handle and this makes the root cellar temporary.  The size can be changed to fit your storage needs and the barn provides the cool, dark, high humidity storage requirements.  I wrote about it here last year.  As you can see the potatoes in the picture have been stored for 9 months and are still in good shape.

Other ways to ensure long storage, is make sure the potatoes are properly cured before digging – at least two weeks in the ground after the vines die back.  Growing without irrigation helps too.  Irrigation may give you a larger yield but all the effort and water is wasted if you have a huge yield and the potatoes will not store as well (as long) because they have been irrigated.  The potatoes must be absolutely dry when they go into storage and they do not need washing.

Potatoes are a great vegetable to always have on hand, and are fun to grow.  Hopefully this will give  you some ideas on how to store your crop, or even a large economical purchase of spuds from a grower.