So, we’re on to the next phases of our potato harvest! We figured it might be helpful to share what we do for potato storage as we think a lot of people make it more complicated than it needs to be.
As we discussed, we cure our potatoes prior to storage, which is just a fancy way of saying that we dry them out. We do this curing process by laying out our potatoes in a single, flat row and cover them in kitchen towels. We generally want to avoid any exposure to sunlight as this promotes the production of solanine in potatoes, which is harmful to humans.
Once our potatoes are fully cured, they’re ready for storage. We use simple Rubbermaid containers, sized to fit under our guest bed to keep them generally “out of sight.” You’ll notice that we promote good airflow with several drilled holes in the lid of our potato storage beds. We have two of these bins, one for red and white potatoes.
This year, our white potato harvest was a bit less than desired. So, we used a smaller bin this year. We’ll just keep the cover lightly on the storage bin, which will also promote airflow.
If you go looking, you’ll likely find all sorts of “fancy” storage temperatures and conditions you “need” to achieve for storing potatoes. We don’t have any of that and just keep our potatoes in our home. We generally have consistent air temperatures between 60F and 64F and the only “special” thing we do is choose the coolest room inside our home. Sometimes, it gets much warmer than that since we heat with wood.
Indoor conditions are just fine for storing potatoes. We’ve used “ideal” storage conditions in previous years and the difference in storage time is not significant. Perhaps a month, at best. For us and our situation, it’s not worth the effort or cost to try and achieve “ideal” storage conditions.
We can easily get into December and sometimes January with this storage method, proven over nearly a decade of harvesting and storing potatoes this way. Once we get to December, we generally try to blanch and freeze any remaining potatoes we want to store for longer periods. We’ll turn our white potatoes into frozen French fries, our reds into hashbrowns for quick and easy breakfasts. This gets us into an entire year of storage, at least, and we rarely need that time.
We do always try to leave some potatoes for our seed crop for the following season. We have a general strategy here, which we’ll talk about in a future post. But, we just leave those potatoes in these storage units to “eye out” and get all freaky. We don’t care if they get all gangly, since they’re well contained in a storage bin. We don’t observe any off smells or other impacts from doing so. From here, we can just haul these seed potatoes for planting next season!
This is about as simple as it gets for potato storage. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing “more ideal” storage methods. But, if you’re looking for short cuts and ways to deal with a lot of potatoes in a small space, this method has really worked for us!
I have store bought potatoes I want to keep from sprouting. Can I coat them in flour or cornstarch instead of dirt? I’m going to single layer them in a cardboard box between crumpled paper and store in the cool garage. Thanks!
With store bought potatoes, my guess is that flour or corn starch would provide no meaningful benefit. What you’re looking for are enzymes, which naturally occur in soil, that ward off disease. I would opt to just store them as-is. You can still get quite decent storage with the correct storage temperatures, just keep an eye on them. Since you don’t know how old they are, they may sprout earlier than expected. Shelf life is often reduced since they were harvested, stored, shipped and possibly sat at the grocer for some time. Good luck!
Hi, dumb question.
Do you add sand or soil to the bin or just layer the potatoes?
When I was a kid we had a wooden bin with sand in the basement where my mom stored the potatoes for winter. It was a really old house and though.
Not a dumb question at all! These days, we don’t add sand or anything. We have tried that in the past and it is a popular method. What I’d say is we didn’t really see “huge benefits” from it, and it’s a lot of extra work. Perhaps a slightly longer lifespan, but not markedly so. These days, we do a blanch and freeze (usually in December or so) of our extra potatoes into things like fries and hashbrowns, which greatly extends their lifespan.