catjac1975
Garden Master
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2010
- Messages
- 9,021
- Reaction score
- 9,149
- Points
- 397
- Location
- Mattapoisett, Massachusetts
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?
