Potato storage?

[RicinYakima]

Like everything you eat, it is all "engineered" for certain things, from wine grapes to carrots. WA is the second largest potato growing state behind ID. Bill Gates just bought the "100 Circle Farm" 14,000 acre potato farm with contract to McDonalds. Eastern WA is like eastern ID, dry in the winter so they last till the next harvest.

 

[Glaciers]

I usually use a cardboard box with paper on top of sticks under to allow air flow. Pack in dry straw works well if it's really dry. Add a few holes for air to get in. Just dump them in unwashed after a few days for the outside to be good dry then into the box cover so air can travel through. Store the box in my shop close to the wall in a dark corner. Try to keep them from freezing at about 38*. Last year I used a old 120 quart cooler. Drilled some holes in the bottom placed sticks and paper like in the cardboard box and leave the lid cracked 1/2" with a old bath towel draped across to block out light. I just dump them in, but they are dry. The cooler works good by minimizing temp swings. Low humidity, no bugs, even temps. We are still eating potatoes we harvested in September. In Ian's country a root cellar or refrigerator. Ground in Texas probably will be to warm for a cellar, 38* is best.

 

[smokeywolf]

All that's been said above.
Our basement pantries don't get down below 55*. They do however stay at 60+/-2* day in and day out, regardless of outside temps. I did not know about keeping them from touching.
One thing I can add, don't store onions near your potatoes. Onions emit a gas that encourages the potatoes to sprout.

 

[fiver]

actually Maine is number one.

 

[Rick]

I did not know about keeping them from touching.

I don't know that to be fact, could just be an old wives tales. Was something I had heard several years ago so unless I have too many I spread them out to not touch. Work? Dunno really.

 

[Glaciers]

Like I said I would just put them it the box or cooler, but to be clear in a cooler there would be no more than 3 layers so air would move freely. Besides that and more importantly the cooler storage temps and low humidity are far easier maintain here then a lot of places in the lower 48 I would think.

 

[RicinYakima]

actually Maine is number one.

US Department of Ag






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Featured snippet from the web
Idaho

They are grown commercially in 30 states, but Idaho grows more potatoes than any other state, followed by Washington. North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Colorado are also leading producers of potatoes. In 2017 a total of 1.05 million acres of potatoes were harvested in the United States.

Potatoes | Agricultural Marketing Resource Center

Maine has not been in the running since the 1950's.

 

[Winelover]

Cindy just mentioned this subject, the other day. Seems, if you store a few apples with the potatoes, it prevents them from sprouting.

During the colder months we store our potatoes in the main (ICF) garage. Never wash, until ready to use. Temperature never gets below 40 degrees, in the winter. During the warmer months, stored under the sink, in the laundry room. We go through a lot of potatoes, since we have them almost every day, with our main meal.

Sweet potatoes/yams are are stored the same way. However, each is individually wrapped in a a small paper bag.

 

[L Ross]

Smokeywolf alluded to a point I was going to make. Some fruits and vegetables emit ethylene gas. This gas promotes ripening and apples are particularly bad for these gas emissions. Root cellars, (real ones, not like my cold room under the back steps), have vent pipes to allow the ethylene gas to escape.

Back in the "bad old days", my Dad would take a drive up to Antigo, WI, an area known for potatoes, and buy seconds for as little as 50¢/100 lbs. With the trunk of his 55 Ford filled he'd put 300 lbs. in the basement of the old farm house in big wooden bins. They kept well. Mom washed them as she used them. Of course the highest use a potato can aspire to is be used in venison stew.

 

[Bret4207]

anyway if you pre-slice them in the shape you want, you can freeze them and then cook them from frozen.
don't thaw them out first unless your gonna French fry them.

That right there is the #1 bestest way. Cook up a mess, mash them and freeze. Or slice them up for fries and freeze. Or boil them up in the skins and freeze. Not the most energy efficient way, but it's solid.

 

[JWFilips]

Too many lectins

Well as long as we choose to eat any "offspring" of the Plant Kingdom you are ingesting "Lectins" ( some more than others)
Trying to not do that can drive a normal man crazy ( I have tried Dr. Gundry's concept it is not fun, but I still am a subscriber: Way easier if you live in southern California than in the cold Northeast)

 

[Joshua]

Back in the "bad old days", my Dad would take a drive up to Antigo, WI, an area known for potatoes, and buy seconds for as little as 50¢/100 lbs. With the trunk of his 55 Ford filled he'd put 300 lbs.

My older friend Varn talks about his father taking him and his three brothers to the already harvested potato fields when he was a boy. His father would ask the farmer if he could pick the leftovers. The dad always paid before hand, or sometimes the farmer would take pity on them and let them take them for free. What the farmer didn’t know was that all those boys were baseball players. They would park the old truck at the edge of the field, the boys would fan out, then out came the baseball mitt and they would start gunning them in to there dad. Filled up the bed of that truck everytime. He said they had to find a new farm every few years once the farmer got wind of their scheme.

 

[dale2242]

We have found that we need to buy smaller quantities more often and try not keep the so long before they sprout/spoil.
Smaller bags are more expensive per pound but we don`t have to toss any so it makes up for it.

 

[L Ross]

We have found that we need to buy smaller quantities more often and try not keep the so long before they sprout/spoil.
Smaller bags are more expensive per pound but we don`t have to toss any so it makes up for it.

All well and good as long as the infrastructure system is functioning.

I have a friend who is more serious about preparing for the SHTF scenario than most. His position is that the system needs to be "right" every day, and he only needs to be right once. I am a firm believer in the two is one, one is none theory, but the attendant gloom of constantly awaiting Armageddon is simply too depressing to sustain. My friend is reveling in this entire past year. He is vindicated.

 

[fiver]

last spring when the covid was still rearing it's head and nobody really knew what it was going to do or how bad it was gonna be the shipping system was really taking a hit.
a couple of the tatoe farms knew their orders would be down and they were gonna have a surplus of the larger sizes.
about once a week they would make an announcement on the local facebook pages and just dump truckloads of potatoes in piles around town and they were free for the taking.
after the piles were picked over they'd come in with a back hoe and dump truck and haul them off.

 

[L Ross]

Potatoes don't freeze well for us, but they can just fine. Also a very basic potato soup of diced side pork nicely browned, onion, cubed potato, salt and black pepper is surprisingly good, and cans beautifully. When my brother and I were little, our Mom made it and called it Hunter Stew. Many years later I called her up and told her I made up a batch. She laughed and told me she made up that name, knowing her boy's would eat it. She told me her and her nine siblings ate gallons of the stuff on the plains of South Dakota as a girl. They just called it potato soup.

 

[Ian]

My mother would make potato soup in the pressure cooker. Once the potatoes and onions were cooked, most of the water was drained and they were mashed, skins strained out, salt and ground black pepper added, and a generous dose of shredded cheese added to the bowl when it was served. Making it on my own later I just boiled the potatoes and added bacon bits for crunch and flavor.

 

[Jeff H]

My mother would make potato soup in the pressure cooker. Once the potatoes and onions were cooked, most of the water was drained and they were mashed, skins strained out, salt and ground black pepper added, and a generous dose of shredded cheese added to the bowl when it was served. Making it on my own later I just boiled the potatoes and added bacon bits for crunch and flavor.

OK, this post is Ian's fault, but he's making me hungry.

My favorite mashed ("whipped," actually) potato recipe is to wash four or five large potatoes, slice/dice to no more than 1" thick, and don't peel them. Boil until tender, with several pinches of fennel seed in the water, then drain, add a one stick of (real) butter and two, three tablespoons of milk and whip with a mixer until smooth. The magic ingredient is the fennel seed. I could eat a couple plates of just that.

"Crunch and flavor:" We also dried corn on the wood stove. Soak a quarter cup of dried corn and add to the soup early enough to let it cook to "semi-chewiness." Too hard will break teeth.

 

[Todd M]

We've stored taters like everyone has mentioned except for the touching rule, and if done right will last till feb-march, which time they can be cut and planted for a jumpstart. they will come up when its time.

 

[fiver]

the key to good mashed taters is to drain them well then put them back on the hot stove to drive out all the extra moisture you can.
then you whip them and add the flavors back in, the dried out tatoes will suck up the butter and milk and such.