How to store potatoes in the cellar: tips for storing potatoes, preserving them in the winter, laying tubers

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For many fruits and vegetables, the preservation problem is the main one; they are easier to grow than provide the possibility of long-term use. Potatoes are not one of them: if you have a good cellar, it is easily stored until the new crop. But for this, too, one must try: to properly prepare the tubers and create the necessary conditions for them.

Content:

  • How much potatoes can be stored
    • The most resistant varieties
  • Storage in the cellar: advantages and disadvantages
  • How to store potatoes in the cellar
    • Requirements for the room: how to keep the crop in winter
    • Tuber preparation
    • Methods for placing tubers
  • Little tricks for long-term storage of potatoes
    • Video: how to store potatoes
  • Reviews

How much potatoes can be stored

Potatoes can be stored for a long time only in storage facilities, a good approximation of which is a properly equipped home cellar. If there is no cellar, stocking potatoes for the winter is not worth it: it is difficult to keep it on the balcony, and in the apartment it is impossible for more than a month. It will be easier to buy as needed in the store.

There is a lot of water and starch in the potato. And starch, as a complex hydrocarbon, begins to hydrolyze over time. The decay rate depends on what other substances and in what quantities are contained in the tubers. And therefore, the shelf life of the crop depends on the variety of potatoes and on how mature it is. In addition, conditions should be created that slow down the breakdown of starch. In general, all this combination of factors determines a very wide framework for the shelf life of a fresh product: it can be stored from a month to almost a year (the best varieties almost do not change their properties for 10 months).

Hydrolysis

The decomposition of starch is multi-stage, so the rate of damage to potatoes depends on many factors

The shelf life of tubers is even regulated by the relevant GOST (28372–93). The document says that they must be aged within 6 to 8 months, but stipulates that these terms depend on the variety and climatic zone. The same GOST also regulates the main storage parameters: in particular, + 3... + 6 is recognized as the optimum temperature interval aboutWITH.

The most resistant varieties

Not all varieties of potatoes can be stored at all. The vast majority of early ripening varieties will not be preserved even until the New Year. After this, the tubers will become flabby and will sprout. You can choose a variety for storage only from the number of medium-late and late. Moreover, the optimal storage temperature of different varieties may vary slightly: for some it is 1.5 aboutC, but for others it can be 3-4 degrees higher. Therefore, in particular, various varieties of potatoes competent owners prefer to store separately from each other.

Mix of varieties

Keeping different varieties together undesirable

It is impossible to indicate general differences that would suggest that this variety is the most resistant to damage during storage, but it has been generally observed that medium-late varieties with yellowish flesh are better stored. These, as well as late-ripening varieties are distinguished by a thicker skinned tubers. During their stay in the garden they accumulate the most complete set of trace elements and tannins necessary for the preservation of the crop. Among the most popular light varieties are the following:

  • Lorch;
  • Gatchinsky 1;
  • Favorite
  • Start;
  • Bryansk reliable;
  • Asterix;
  • Loshitsky;
  • Adretta;
  • Nevsky.

Storage in the cellar: advantages and disadvantages

Among the shortcomings of the cellar storage of potatoes can only be called the fact that this cellar must be had and must be monitored. For the rest, of course, storing the crop in the cellar compared to a balcony or refrigerator has only advantages. Most importantly, it is in a good cellar that you can maintain and regulate the temperature and humidity conditions, as well as ensure the absence of light on which the tubers quickly deteriorate. Humidity should be around 80%.

Equipping a balcony for this purpose is not easy: city dwellers are building or buying special containers with artificial heating and automatic temperature control. Purchased containers have a small useful volume, but high cost. True, they can withstand frosts down to -40 aboutWITH.

Thermal container

It is unprofitable to use purchased thermal containers for storing potatoes

Keeping potatoes in the refrigerator is not at all good: if you keep it in closed bags, it will quickly begin to rot, and in open ones it will spoil neighboring products. Yes and there is not much space in an ordinary refrigerator. Therefore, 2-3 weeks is better to keep potatoes right in the room, in the coolest corner.

How to store potatoes in the cellar

For potatoes to be stored in the cellar for a long time, it must be clean (it is advisable not only to clean the storage every summer, but also to fumigate it with sulfur sabers or to whitewash floors and walls with slaked lime). In addition, it is important that by the time the crop is loaded into the cellar, it should be no higher than 7–8 aboutC (after all, many cellars in the summer warm up to almost room temperature). It is important to create the necessary microclimate in the cellar.

Requirements for the room: how to keep the crop in winter

The temperature in the storage is the most important condition: when it approaches 0 aboutC dramatically accelerates the breakdown of starch into simple carbohydrates, and when increased above 5... 6 aboutWith the start of root growth processes. As for air humidity, excess (above 90%) leads to the development of mold, and low (less than 70%) causes the tubers to dry.

Unfortunately, in large cities, public cellars are often more of hozbloks, and the temperature and humidity conditions in them are far from ideal. So, in our cellar, the necessary conditions are created no earlier than December, so only what was not spoiled before the winter is stored in it.

To create and regulate conditions, you must be able to ventilate the room. It is advisable to fill the cellar floor with clean sand. To increase humidity, you can periodically spray the walls and ceiling with water, to reduce the length, use containers with quicklime. The light in the cellar is turned on only for a short time when it is necessary to perform any work.

Tuber preparation

First of all, the potato crop must be removed on time: overripe tubers are stored even worse than unripe ones. No matter how dirty the potatoes were while digging, washing them before laying them for long-term storage is unacceptable. After all, it is very difficult to dry it after washing, and insufficiently dried tubers will last no more than a month.

Drying out

Tubers must be dried thoroughly.

Dug up tubers must be left in the sun for one and a half to two hours, then they are scattered with a thin layer under a canopy for the so-called treatment. If you maintain a temperature of 12-18 aboutC, then, provided that air is available for 1–2 weeks, random wounds will heal, the peel will be roughened, and if there are diseased potatoes, they will manifest themselves. Then the crop is sorted and stored. The smallest and largest are closer and used in the first months: medium-sized specimens are best stored. If you have to put still warm potatoes in the cellar, you must be prepared for moisture to appear on it. In this case, it is advisable to dust the tubers with wood ash or chalk. Some gardeners treat tubers with Fitosporin.

Methods for placing tubers

In the cellar, you can arrange potatoes and in bulk (in bulk), but under it should be a pallet with ventilation holes. It is most convenient to use small wooden boxes for 2–4 buckets. If the potato was bought in polymer nets, after preparation and sorting it can be returned to them, and the nets can not be put in the cellar close to each other. However, 10-12 cm should be left between the drawers, and also not lean any container against the walls. Any reusable containers must be disinfected before use.

Potatoes in nets

Even if the purchased potatoes seem to be excellent, the nets cannot be carried immediately to the cellar

Little tricks for long-term storage of potatoes

There are many different points that allow you to extend the safety of potatoes; they were developed by many years of experience in gardeners. The most famous tricks are as follows:

  • placement in the cellar of bags of wormwood or fern grass, dried elderberry or mountain ash;
  • covering potatoes with a layer of dry straw;
  • the use of silver objects for air disinfection;
  • joint storage of potatoes and beets;
  • laying layers of potatoes with branches of a Christmas tree or onion husk.
Potatoes and beets

Joint storage of beets and potatoes - classic

The main thing is to periodically sort through the potatoes, removing damaged tubers.

Video: how to store potatoes

Reviews

It is very convenient to store the harvested potatoes in small wooden boxes, knocked down from thin slats. It is very important that there are sufficiently wide gaps between the slats for better ventilation.

Valentine

https://www.ogorod.ru/forum/topic/45-hranenie-kartofelya/

In our village, some gardeners put wormwood in the woods - so that the mice do not encroach on the potatoes and have an antiseptic effect. Used naturally. dried grass.

Zoya

https://www.ogorod.ru/forum/topic/45-hranenie-kartofelya/

The most important thing is that the potato should not be damaged when you put it in storage, the room should be dark and have good humidity. If it’s dry, you can pour water on the walls to increase humidity, and if it’s very wet, just open the doors for a short while. Hang a thermometer and watch the temperature! It is very important. The temperature should not be below 0 degrees.

Vlad

https://www.ogorod.ru/forum/topic/45-hranenie-kartofelya/

Definitely only by creating suitable conditions in the cellar, potatoes, and not only, will last until next year. We used to have a cellar, but as we did not ventilate it, the damp stood still and everything grew and rotted there. Now we use the dry cellar in the country, and everything lies almost up to the new harvest!

Michael

https://forum.rmnt.ru/threads/xranenie-kartofelja.86513/page-3

Potatoes are stored in the cellar for a very long time if healthy tubers are laid and proper conditions are created. At least, in the middle of next summer, the owner should have a dilemma: already buy young potatoes or eat up last year.

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