catjac1975
Garden Master
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2010
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You have them in cans but where do you keep the cans? I had failure too but I think we dug them too late and they were already slightly cold damaged. I use trash cans and layers of hay and they are place in the old part of the house with a dirt floor. It does not freeze there but it is very cool.The potatoes release a lot of moisture over the winter and the hay gets moldy but the potatoes have always kept well. (Well, not this year.) I would not be able to keep them in a garage or shed. They would freeze. And the plastic bags would hasten the rot.Last years potato harvest has been severely decimated by storage failure. I'm so disappointed!
I was confident in the main storage box that I've used for several years successfully, and less confident in the two new 32/40? gallon trashcans
that I needed for the extra room.
My main storage is a double walled plastic tool type box, like the type that goes in a pickup, and can hold about 300# of potatoes. It has 2" insulation everywhere but the lid. I store my spuds by size and variety in cardboard boxes and paper grocery bags inside. Then I cover all of that with fat sheets of newspaper, close the lid and layer with more 2"foam board insulation and a thick packing blanket over all. It has worked beautifully until this year.
The two trashcans were insulated with 2 layers of cardboard and then bubble wrap, and the potatoes were stored in paper bags until I ran out, then I used plastic grocery bags.
The plastic bags were the first big mistake. After the first bout of zero degree weather I had some frozen potatoes mixed in the bags. (And that was a weird thing too, because the potatoes seemed to be frozen randomly, with no pattern as to size of potato or location in the bag.)
I used the potatoes in the cans, having to discard at least half of spuds in the second one.
Monday I opened my main box with fear and trepidation and discovered the same sad scene.
Mushy, soft potatoes, and many that were sporting big moldy patches.
I salvaged about 60 to 70 pounds out of that one.
So, in the cans I think poor insulation, and plastic bagging led to the rot.
In the main box, freezing probably had some effect, but I think it was mostly too much humidity in there.
In past years I would have been opening that box up about once a week to get the weeks potatoes for the kitchen, so there was at least some air exchange, and I was also on the lookout for any spoiling. This year it stayed closed up once the freezing weather started.
I was wondering if this year, along with better insulation of course, if I layered the potatoes with peat or shavings if that would help.
(I just said if three times in one sentence! )
Do you guys have any ideas? What do you who live in freezing climates use?