Aug
10
Digging Up and Storing Potatoes for the Winter
ByRemember how I talked about planting potatoes? Now it’s already time to dig up the potatoes! It’s one of my very favorite things to do!
Here are a few tips for digging up and storing potatoes:
- Once the plant turns crispy and brown and dead, the potatoes under the ground are finished growing. ( I suppose this is obvious.)
- When the plant is crispy, you can leave the potatoes under the ground for several more weeks and they will be fine. This will toughen them up a little, which is good.
- On the other hand, if you’re experiencing a lot of rain, you want to get the potatoes out of the ground so that they don’t rot. Rotten potatoes don’t make good french fries.
- Use a big spade or potato fork to dig up your potatoes. Look for the base of the plant, then dig several inches away from the base. There are likely to be four to eight potatoes with each plant.
- Occasionally you will stab a potato with your spade or potato fork. This is a bummer…and also kind of funny. Throw those stabbed potatoes into a separate box and eat these potatoes first.
- Green potatoes can make you sick. Potatoes turn green when they are exposed to light. Some people say to throw away any potato that has even a little green on it. I just cut off the green part and eat the rest. I have lived to tell about it.
- Russet or kennebec potatoes store the best for a longer period of time. We usually eat up our red potatoes and yukon gold potatoes first and keep the brown potatoes in storage longer.
- To prepare your potatoes for storing, lay them singularly on a newspaper or old sheet in a darkish room. Cover them with another newspaper or sheet and let them sit this way for about a week. This will help “harden them off”. Their skins will toughen up, which will help them keep longer.
- After your potatoes have been hardened off, put them into covered boxes or baskets. We usually put about 15-20 pounds in each box.
- It is VERY important that the containers for your potatoes do not allow any light in. Light will cause the potatoes to sprout. Without light, potatoes will not sprout for months.
- Place your containers in a dark, cool room. We have a room in our basement that has been great for storing potatoes. It doesn’t have windows to allow any light in. It is cool but not cold.
- Cold potatoes will “sugar”. That’s why you don’t put potatoes in the refrigerator.
- You may want to occasionally sift through your potatoes to check for any that may be rotting. One rotten potato can cause the whole box to rot. It stinks (literally).
- Potatoes will keep well for several months if stored correctly. Ours usually last until about March, at which time we use the remaining potatoes for our seed potatoes!
Sometime in the next few weeks we’ll be dumping out our potato container to see how it did! I can’t wait to see if we have a whole bunch of potatoes in our bucket (and I’m trying not to get my hopes up just in case they didn’t grow well). I’ll share pics of that experience when we get around to it!
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This post is linked to Kitchen Tip Tuesdays.
Well I’ve got my hopes up for your container potatoes! I think the thing I hate the most about gardening is the backbreaking work of hilling potatoes. If you’ve found a solution for that I think I’ll love you forever! :)
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Cyclone Reply:
July 5th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Plant your potatoes in tires. Cut out the center ring of the tire with a reciprocating saw and then stack tires as your plants grow. I grow my potatoes 3 tires high with 5 plants per tire stack. When it comes time to harvest, just unstack the tires and your potatoes literally fall from the sky.
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Crystal Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 9:18 am
You can eliminate hill altogether. I have the easiest and very
productive way to plant potatoes. First if you have animals save the dirty bedding all year long. and poo. It is better if you use sheep, or goats as their poo is not hot. Till up the place you plan to put your potatoes. Prepare you seed potatoes the way you usually would and then just lay them on the ground a foot apart in all directions. Now don’t do ANY digging. Put the saved bedding or just plain straw. See if you can find moldy or old straw or hay that a farmer near you may have that he can’t use. This works really well. Put the straw or old bedding over the top of the potatoes. Be sure to cover them with AT LEAST 4 inches I try to make it closer to 6 inches. I have GREAT yeilds and you can cheat and just grab a potato or two early on without disturbing the plant. So, there you go, no back breaking work!!! Easy and fun. We just pull the potato plant up when they are dead and most of the potatoes come with it. The rest are easy to see. Then just till under the straw and you are ready to plant something else there next year
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Question, what does it mean when you say that a potato will “sugar” if kept cold? Thanks! :)
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Laura Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
When I say the potatoes will “sugar” I mean that they turn very sweet. They are edible, but not great. They aren’t ideal then for mashed potatoes and other regular things you make with potatoes.
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I’m interested to see how your container potatoes work out too. I tried doing that once…but I was too impatient and didn’t wait long enough for the potatoes to grow. If this works well for you, I may just have to try again!
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Hmmm, I never knew you could store potatoes so long. Thanks for letting me know!
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We just digged up ours last week and have been enjoying them already ;)
I did not plant too much this year for storing…but hopefully next year will be bigger!
Thank you for sharing,
lady m
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Thank you for the tips! We planted potatoes for the first time this year. I’ve been watching them begin to wither a bit, and was beginning to wonder what I was doing to kill them! I’m so happy to know that they’re supposed to do that.
And I have a question. What does it mean when the potatoes “sugar?” Because I’ve got several potatoes sitting in my fridge right now, & I’m wondering what they’re actually doing in there. I thought that would be a good place to put them, since they always seem to spoil so quickly in the pantry…(oops!)
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Laura Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Potatoes turn sweet when in the fridge. It’s too bad that happens because it WOULD be a nice place to store them. :(
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patsy Reply:
September 16th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I sometimes purposely put my potatoes in the fridge to make them sweet. I then use them for potatoe salad or oven roasts. Everybody loves them this way. It is not overly sweet but sweet that it has a nice taste. I don’t use them for mashed potatoes though.
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I have a question. Do you need a lot of room to grow potatoes? I’ve thought about it in the past, but never did it because in my mind, I need tons of space. Thanks!
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Thank you so much for posting this. I am the worst potato-keeper EVER. I have knowingly broken every potato storage rule and still wondered why my potatoes sprouted while they sat on the kitchen counter of my sunny, sunny kitchen. Oops! I will now try to be more diligent about keeping my potatoes fresh. :)
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Thank you for this. I followed your container potato tutorial and have been wondering what I should do next! My plants haven’t completely died off yet.
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Oh no! Am I causing my potatoes to rot by watering them well right now? I thought that was why they were dying off. Now the plants look healthy, but maybe the potatoes are rotten? Do I leave them or dig them up? We still have lots of growing season left here.
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I see you list a potato fork in your coments. I can’t find any information as to purchase a potato fork. Can you give me any ideas?
Thank you Ed
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Laura Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
The potato fork I was referring to looks something like this one at Amazon, but you can find one for less expensive at a hardware store!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002EX4KK2?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwheavenlyho-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B002EX4KK2
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My neighbor grew Kennebec potatoes last year. They are stored in a cool dark place, but are sprouting 4 or 5 inches now. He wants to know how to stop the sprouting.
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Laura Reply:
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
For the first time, I’m having this problem too. They’ve never sprouted this way before. Usually they wait until March to start sprouting. I just pull of the sprouts and eat the potatoes and they are fine. Your neighbor can go through his potatoes and pull off all the sprouts if he wants and leave them in storage, or just pull off the sprouts as he’s ready to eat them.
I think mine must be in a room that gets too much light, even though it’s still very little. I’m going to try a different room in my basement next year.
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Joan Falkenhein Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 8:55 am
My neighbor is thankful for your input. He got a lot of helpful
information from your article. He said his potatoes are in a dark
place. He is puzzled that they still sprouted.
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what do you think about storing potatoes in sand in a large plastic barrel? There would be little if any air movement but the area would be about 45 degrees and dark. Please respond quickly as we are about to commence our harvest. Thanks, Les
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Laura Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 9:23 am
I guess I don’t know enough about it, but I lean against storing them this way. Here’s a link I found with more information: http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_foods/Storing_the_Surplus_Potatoes_and_Root_Vegetables.php
We’ve only stored them in boxes in our basement, so I’m not an expert on all the different ways of storing potatoes!
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