How To Store Potatoes Correctly. Part 1

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Almost all people eat potatoes with pleasure. A rare feast can do without it: potatoes are baked, put in soups, in hearty salads and in main courses, and they also make delicious snacks from it. We are used to seeing potatoes on our table at any time of the year. And in order to eat friable potatoes in winter, it is important to take care of their proper storage. If you approach this issue correctly, saving potatoes until the new season will not be difficult

Getting ready to send potatoes for storage

Of course, the most important thing is to find the most suitable storage location. It is important that it is dry and cool enough. And such a place should be illuminated to a minimum. In winter, it is important to try to store potatoes at a temperature of two to three degrees. In colder conditions, it will begin to lose its taste and will not have the most pleasant sweetish aftertaste. And the humidity in storage areas should not fall below 85%.

After the potatoes are dug up or purchased, they need to be thoroughly dried. Ideally, it is dried outside. If potatoes grow in their own area, it is best to dig them in clear, sunny weather to immediately spread them out to dry. Well, if you happen to dig potatoes in rainy weather, you can lay them out to dry in the garage, as well as in the entryway or in the country house - it is important that the room has a roof that prevents further moisture from entering the potatoes.

Further, when all the potatoes are thoroughly dry, they are carefully sorted out, rejecting damaged, rotten and green nodules. This is very important because storing spoiled tubers next to whole tubers is fraught with unpleasant consequences.

How to store

For proper winter storage of potatoes, air-permeable bins or spacious wooden boxes are perfect. In this case, the boxes are recommended to be placed on low supports. And if the tubers are stored in bins, then it is recommended to pour them no higher than one and a half meters.

In order to prevent potato tubers from sprouting during storage, experts advise putting several ripe apples into the boxes with potatoes. And the potatoes sent to the bins are covered with an old blanket or burlap - this measure is aimed at protecting the upper potato layer from freezing.

By the way, some gardeners store potato crops in straw - first, the tubers are placed on a bed of straw, after which all subsequent layers are abundantly shifted with straw.

How to store potatoes in an apartment

In urban conditions, in the absence of a cellar or basement, it is allowed to store the potato crop in the apartment, more precisely, on the balcony. To do this, you will need a sealed and sufficiently strong container, for example, a good and solid box with a capacity of no more than 320 kg. It is not superfluous to install a second bottom and provide the box with a double lid. And all the voids formed should be filled with loose sawdust or high-quality insulation. Styrofoam is also fine.

It is best if the box intended for storing potatoes is made of thick plywood, sturdy lining or tongue-and-groove planks. In order to increase its moisture resistance, it is advisable to paint the box. And to maintain a stable temperature, it does not hurt to install a pair of 15-watt bulbs each inside. In order for these lamps to light up automatically during a decrease in temperature, it would be nice to install a thermal relay. Or equip one of the walls of the box with a thermometer and turn on the lamps manually as soon as the thermometer starts to go down. Well, so that the potatoes do not begin to turn green under the influence of light, the lamps need to be painted with dark paint. It will also be useful to cover the potatoes themselves with a dark-colored material.

In the absence of a balcony, nodules are allowed to be stored in any dark place in the apartment. Only in this situation, their shelf life usually does not exceed one month, and after this period, the tubers will begin to grow or wither.

As for the refrigerator, which often stores a huge amount of various vegetables and fruits, this storage option is categorically not suitable for potatoes. The starch contained in it in substantial volumes, under the influence of low temperatures, will gradually begin to turn into sugar, and this will greatly spoil the taste of potatoes. In addition, tubers stored in the refrigerator quickly rot and become very wet. Moreover, no refrigerator is able to hold potato supplies for a whole season.