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  • From: Willie McKemie <mf AT austinfarm.org>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] storage
  • Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 10:07:36 -0600

On Sat, Feb 25, 2006 at 10:28:33AM -0500, Lucy Goodman wrote:
> we had great results storing our potatoes in a fridge not buried in the
> ground but sitting in an unheated barn this winter.

Someone might be interested in my potato storage experience this past
season. Most years, I only get about half my potatoes well harvested.
I get behind, the weeds get ahead of me, and we end up just salvaging
the last half of the crop. Last year, I made a concerted effort to get
them harvested. And, I had far more than I could sell; we usually sell
out (or throw out) in September or so. We usually start digging in
late April or maybe early May. Well, on to storage.

We stored in three places:
1) a walkin cooler at about 40 deg
2) a "tomato" room, air conditioned to about 70 deg.
3) in un-air-conditioned space in the barn. 95-100 deg at times.

Along about August or September, I noticed that the tomato room
potatoes were sprouting. So we moved them into the walkin. We had
been selling mostly from the un-cooled supply; we eventually moved them
into the walkin even though they never sprouted. About November, I
noticed all the potatoes (now in the walkin) were sprouting.

So, it seems, in my situation, they store best at ambient temperature.
and worst at AC temperatures. In the past, I have left the fluorescent
lights in my walkin on as a matter of convenience. Bad idea. Any kind
of light quickly ruins the potatoes. I covered the barn-stored potato
pile with tarps. My tomato room has no windows and the lights are on
only briefly.

I have recently used quite a few as seed. Planting whole potatoes at
10"-12". And, we continue to cull, clean up the survivors and sell
them. I do admit to being somewhat embarrassed about selling
de-sprouted potatoes in fairly poor condition.

Red Lasoda in central Texas. The first planting is up again after
being frozen off once. They may have seen their last freeze.

--
Willie, ONWARD! Through the fog!
http://counter.li.org Linux registered user #228836 since 1995
Debian3.0/GNU/Linux system uptime 69 days 20 hours 34 minutes




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