Your Best Storage Crop

[digitS']

Talking about an easy storage - without canning or blanching/freezing ... maybe dehydrating.

For me, it has to be Shallots. Even this new-to-me Zebrune is still just fine at about 90%. And, as usual, those guys are in the garage - where it freezes during the winter!

The onions do quite well, maybe amazingly so given what is considered the norm. I have no serious problem keeping even "sweet" varieties on basement shelves. Some things work well in the storage room down there. Early potatoes can be a problem - I usually need to mess with them to toughen them up for storage and put them somewhere colder than the basement during the early days of Fall. I say "usually" but I didn't really do that "toughening" until recent years - will try to continue to do better and work around the weather. The potatoes did just fine in 2021-22. About 20 pounds went to the dump this week but, Hey, it's the last of April!

Also, I shouldn't put so many square feet into potatoes, or I should see if anyone would appreciate a 10# bag after harvest, or we should eat less rice and pasta - replacing those with spuds. I know that we ate less pasta over the last 2 winters/springs because we come out with too much pasta sauce in the freezers! Well, it's okay .

Steve
btw: the shallots are in the garage because i began growing them before we moved to this house with a "better" basement. they were kept just fine in the garage at the other home.

 

[meadow]

I was surprised to learn that a second crop of potatoes can be planted in our region (no later than August) for harvest in November. So I'm thinking of that second crop as an alternate type of storage for seed potatoes... just sort of refreshing them a bit while providing bonus winter noms.

I've had good luck storing winter squash. Of course some types, like delicata, don't keep very long at all. Winter Luxury pumpkins did not keep well, but New England Sugar Pie (aka Small Sugar) was still going strong when we ate the last one in January.

Favorite storage crop of all is dry beans!

 

[Ridgerunner]

So no freezing or canning and I'd consider the only acceptable dehydrating to be what I'd call curing. Not sure if you mean storge to just be for eating or would include propagation. I lean toward it including propagation. I'm thinking more of a subsistence type thing. All gardening is local. You'd have to be able to grow it and have a climate or conditions for storage. Your conditions and mine would be quite different. And there is that subjective word "best". It's quite possible based on her criteria your wife's definition so "best" her best may be different from yours. I'm confident my wife's best would be totally different from mine.

With that wordsmithing and lawyering out of the way. Growing up on a subsistence farm in the ridges of East Tennessee I'd say field corn. We'd plant two acres, let it cure on the stalk in the field. and put it in a well ventilated corn crib. Heat or freezing did not bother it as long as it stayed dry and we kept the rodents under control. It could be kept for years and was important to the survival of that subsistence farm. That corn helped keep the milk cow in good production, kept the plow horses grained year around, helped fatten the hogs for slaughter, helped the chickens get through the snowy days of winter, and could be used to grind for cornbread. I'm sure in other climates and conditions other grains could work well. On that farm the grain was field corn. Dad did not use it for seed corn, he always bought that. He used a hybrid variety which was not something he did lightly.

I'd think legumes would be way up there for many people. Cure them, sort them, and store them, pretty easy. For me in Arkansas for production that was black eyed peas probably more than dried beans. Remember, I'm thinking more for subsistence than a hobby.

My favorite was Sweet Potatoes. They were really productive and if well cured and then stored in a dry but relatively warm area they would last well up into spring. I never kept them good for eating until the new crop came in but a couple of years it was close. I'd propagate them by sets which clones them, no worries about cross-pollination. I could not get white potatoes or winter squash to store nearly that long, I just did not have a good place for them.

 

[flowerbug]

...
Favorite storage crop of all is dry beans!

yes! peas too.

after that it is onions and garlic. i still have garlic that is in decent shape from last year and i'm amazed because i've not treated it what i considered all that great but it has persisted this long. some of it is starting to grow because i've been keeping it where there is more light but otherwise the onions have been in this room and so too the bulbules from the garlic. both now have some green sprouts. still edible. some may get planted this next week depending upon what the weather is up to.

 

[Phaedra]

Did Dahlias count?

 

[ducks4you]

Sweet potatoes. The ones I harvested last fall, buried in a window planter (basement gro light setup), put on a heat mat with water and under a gro light are growing very nice slips. Two wouldn't fit in the window planter that I used, and still haven't spoiled.