This has been our first year at garden storage/root cellaring. We have a 150yr old farm house with a wonderful old cellar underneath. It has been a good learning experience. Some spoilage, but not much more than I can catch and keep up with. My potatoes are getting pretty wrinkley and sprouting. It is only just Feb.... how can I save them to last until spring? Humidity is only about 80% down there, but being only one room, I didn't want to mess with that too much. Thanks.

-- Lou (daleb@kent.net), February 07, 2000

Answers

It sounds like it might need to be a bit colder in the cellar for optimum storage. You may wish to check the temperature with a thermometer and open a window to adjust accordingly. Also rubbing off or breaking off sprouts as soon as they appear will prolong the life of the potatoes and help to keep them from getting as wrinkly.

-- greenbeanman (greenbeanman@ourtownusa.net), February 07, 2000.

Lou, greenbeanman is right. something else to keep in mind is that many of us gardened in drought conditions last year (and will again this year) it severely affects the storage life of root cellared crops. Potatoes will only last so long under most home root cellar conditions, this year they started going bad sooner than usual. Furthermore, many of us had much warmer winters than normal. So our cellars stayed much warmer than usual.

At this point there isn't much you can do except keep going through them looking for rotting ones and picking the sprouts off the keepers. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), February 08, 2000.

If the root cellar starts to warm up, the potatoes will probably start to sprout, even if it cools down again. We try to keep ours at 35 to 40 degrees by ventilation with colder air if necessary, but sometimes a warm spell in the midst of winter will get them growing. The potatoes that we are saving to replant we keep in paper bags seperate from those that we save to eat. We save seed from the healthiest most productive plants, not necessarily the biggest nicest potatoes.

-- Jim (jiminwis@yahoo.com), February 08, 2000.

Key to storing potatoes -- start with unbruised taters, keep them as close to 32 as possible without freezing them, and keep them in the DARK. Even heavy paper bags don't work for us. Lightproof sealed bins are nice, but then you have ventilation problems. Best is a dark, windowless root cellar.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), February 14, 2000.