Above ground potato storage for the Northwest

Written by Kathy Morse

Sunday, 23 November 2008 12:46

We are fortunate here in the Northwest that it doesn’t get too cold in the winter so storing home grown produce in a cold garage/basement is a wonderful option. One method I developed for storing my potatoes works very well.

Buy a traditional plastic garbage bin. It works better if it has wheels as it can get heavy depending on how many potatoes you store.
Using a drill, put small holes all around the bin at several levels for air circulation.
Put about 4-6 inches of sand in the bottom of the bin and then lay a piece of grating or a frame made of wood with some hardware cloth over the sand. This keeps the potatoes out of contact with the sand.
When getting ready to store your potatoes, wet the sand to provide humidity to the potatoes throughout the winter.
Put your potatoes in either a mesh or paper bag, label them with the variety and set them in the bin and put the lid on tight to make sure you do not have a rodent problem.

I have been using this method of a number of years with no problem with rot. Of course, you want to make sure the potatoes are firm and do not have any bad spots when you store them. Do not wash them but do brush most of the dirt off them before storing. Around March/April you will noticeany you have left are starting to sprout as the weather warms. I always save some seed potatoes that I want to grow the following year in a separate bag so that I don’t eat them by mistake.

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