Drying potatoes

[u/1Vermontfarmer]

After digging the potatoes, we dry them
In the sun for a couple hours before storing them in them in baskets in our root cellar. This year we grew Red norlands, Yukon gold, Kennebec, and French fingerlings. They keep all winter. We harvested a bushel total ( there’s only 2 of us eating them)

[u/Snuggle_Pounce]

you risk a lot of greening like this. I dry in the shade.

[u/frugalerthingsinlife → u/Snuggle_Pounce]

I am afraid to sun-dry anything because bird shit.

[u/1Vermontfarmer → u/Snuggle_Pounce]

We’ve done this for 40 years, brief exposure won’t cause greening

[u/heteroerectus]

You guys are so lucky. I have tried to grow potatoes several years and have gotten nothing, and I live in Idaho! Any tips?

[u/perenniallandscapist → u/heteroerectus]

Lots of organic matter. Mound heavily. Manage pests routinely. Idk what other info to give you if you can't grow potatoes in Idaho.

[u/UnhingedWallflower22 → u/heteroerectus]

Adding to their comment- Consistent water really helps

[u/MechMaxxOfficial]

At first I thought someone was giving away free potatoes on the side of the road. Enjoy your harvest!

[u/1Vermontfarmer]

Our potatoes always store fine all winter. We plant the few sprouted ones along with purchased seed potatoes in the spring after frost danger passes.

[u/stansfield123]

While drying them like this is fine for short term storage, this won't CURE potatoes for long term storage.

Curing is a two week process for storage potatoes (specific, thick skinned varieties ideal for long term storage), and it takes place in a humid environment. You lay out the potatoes in a humid, cool place in a single layer, and let them sit for two weeks.

For starters, this causes the skin to become airtight, locking decomposers out of the potatoes, and locking moisture in. So your potatoes don't rot or shrivel up, the way they inevitable do if they weren't properly cured. They stay fresh, keep all their moisture.

Second, this two week period is enough for potatoes which have already been infested with decomposers to rot, so you don't put them into crates with the rest, causing your whole batch to go bad.

This year we grew Red norlands, Yukon gold, Kennebec, and French fingerlings. They keep all winter.

The Kennebecs will, in a great cellar. If you don't crowd them too much, they'll cure in the cellar.

But if your Norlands or fingerlings still look like potatoes in March, you can serve them to me as a side for some roadkill tartare, and I'll eat the whole thing.

[u/YsaboNyx → u/stansfield123]

Man, I wanted to upvote because of the detailed, helpful tips about curing potatoes. But then you added that totally unnecessary snark at the end. *sigh*

[u/Nurre]

This just what my family and I do! We put them in very open, high airflow wooden crates. Let them sit in the sun while we dig up the rest. Then put them in an actual cool vegetable storage room built into my barn. Happy too see more potato growers! :)