How to store potatoes in winter: where and at what temperature, storage on the balcony, in the garage and cellar

Long-term storage of potatoes involves both the proper preparation of tubers and the creation of the necessary conditions: temperature, humidity, lighting. Ideal preservation is possible only in a special storage; potatoes are not bad stored in a good cellar; it is difficult to keep them on the balcony, and even more so in the apartment. However, our man is capable of various tricks, allowing to extend the shelf life of the "second bread" for the whole winter.

General recommendations for storing potatoes

The potato contains a lot of water and the main substance for which it is loved - starch. Starch is a complex carbohydrate that is gradually hydrolyzed, resulting in tuber spoilage. The decay rate of starch depends on the quality of the product and temperature and humidity conditions. Ideally, potatoes can lie right up to a new crop; GOST 28372–93 sets the storage period from 6 to 8 months. Optimum temperature should be slightly above 0 ^aboutC (according to GOST - from + 3... + 6 ^aboutC, really - depending on the type of potato).

It is important to choose the right variety: most early ripening varieties are not subject to long-term storage. Among medium-late and late, varieties with yellowish flesh and thick peel are better stored. Different varieties are preferably stored separately from each other. But perhaps more important than the choice of variety is the proper preparation of tubers for storage.

Preparatory work

It is important to dig up potatoes in time. Both unripe and overripe tubers are stored significantly worse than those that are harvested on time. Washing dug up tubers is permissible only as a last resort: no matter how dirty the harvest is, the use of water to clean it is fraught with a decrease in preservation, since drying tubers after washing very difficult.

If you do not even slightly dry the washed potatoes, in a month it will begin to rot.

Dug up tubers must be subjected to short exposure to sunlight. One and a half to two hours in the sun kills a significant portion of pathogens, improves the safety of the crop. After that, the potatoes are transferred under a canopy, where the "treatment" period begins. If you manage to hold the tubers under a canopy at 12-18 ^aboutWith at least a week, all sorts of wounds overgrow with their skin, the skin itself becomes stronger. Sick potatoes, as a rule, manifest themselves during this time and during subsequent sorting, they can be removed from the general heap.

When sorting, they try to separate the largest and smallest copies: they are stored worse, they are stored separately and try to use faster. Ideally, the potato should have a temperature close to the storage temperature before being sent for storage. If it is warm, it is advisable to sprinkle it with chalk or ash, so that when placed in a cold storage, moisture does not protrude so much. Sometimes tubers are treated with various preparations before storage, for example Fitosporin.

At what temperature and humidity should potatoes be stored

Some varieties of potatoes like a temperature of about 1.5 ^aboutC, others - about 4 ^aboutWITH. These differences can only be taken into account in special storages with the ability to fine-tune conditions. Therefore, everything from +1 ^aboutC to +5 ^aboutC is considered normal. At lower temperatures, the hydrolysis of starch is accelerated sharply, at higher temperatures, the roots begin to grow. Humidity below 70% is fraught with drying of tubers, above 90% - by their moldiness. The absence of light in the storehouse is also important: the light is turned on only for the time necessary for carrying out certain works.

How to store potato crops outside the house

Now in large cities you can easily buy potatoes all year round, so many who do not have a cellar and garden, buy it only as needed. Indeed, keeping tubers in an apartment for a month or more is extremely difficult. But those who grow their crops or are used to buying potatoes for a year from autumn find various ways to save it.

With a cellar or at least a garage, the problem is solved relatively simply; The only drawback of this approach is that it is necessary to have this room and monitor it. In general, cellar storage allows you to have your own potatoes until the summer, which has many advantages: independence from trade network, the opportunity at any time to have fresh produce, and if it is grown independently - and confidence in environmental cleanliness.

Vegetable store

Special vegetable stores are ideal premises; they are available in large agricultural enterprises. There you can automatically maintain the temperature and humidity, as a result of which the potato easily lies before the new crop. They hold tubers in vegetable stores both in bulk (directly on the floor, on pallets), and in various containers (boxes on shelves or racks). For an ordinary city dweller, the first approximation of a vegetable storehouse is a cellar (most often an underground one).

Cellar storage

It is important that the cellar is clean and that by the time the tubers are loaded into it, the temperature in it should not be higher than at least 7–8 ^aboutWITH. Cleanliness means not only basic cleaning, but also periodic whitewashing of the walls, ceiling and shelves with lime and fumigation of the room with a sulfur saber. The floor in the cellar is often covered with clean sand. Potatoes can be stored in the cellar both in bulk and in any unpressurized containers.

It is important that there is the possibility of periodic ventilation of the cellar, and ideally, the presence of a permanent hood. If the humidity is high, cans or buckets of quicklime are placed in the room; if it is small, they spray the ceiling and walls with water. The light should only be turned on for a short time.

Use of garages

Owners of one-story garages often equip them with an underground cellar. True, there is an opinion that its presence somewhat worsens the safety of the car, but a properly equipped cellar with an extract to the street does not affect the humidity in the garage itself. Therefore, in this case, the task of storing potatoes is solved in the same way as in the case of a conventional cellar.

Another thing is if it is impossible to equip the cellar in the garage. In this case, for some time you can store the crop directly next to the machine. What exactly time depends on the weather, but you can not hope for long-term storage in an unheated garage. To mitigate the effects of frost, for example, old blankets are used, in which nets or boxes of potatoes are wrapped. If the outside temperature drops very much, soon the situation will be almost the same in the garage, so save can only thermal containers (heated drawers), which, however, with the same success can be put on the balcony.

Potato on the balcony: at what temperature can it be stored in winter

It’s difficult to adapt an ordinary balcony for long-term storage of potatoes, a glazed one is a little easier. Even ordinary glazing somewhat delays the decrease in temperature on the balcony: for example, if cold weather has settled around -5 ^aboutC, we can hope that on the glassed-in balcony the temperature will stay positive for a week. Modern glazing options allow you to have an even greater margin of time and temperature. But it all comes to an end, and with prolonged serious cold snap frosts come to the balcony.

For these cases, craftsmen construct various boxes with artificial heating and thermoregulation. Thermal containers of various types are also on sale, but they are not very cheap and usually small in size. But the best models of devices are able to withstand lowering the air temperature on the balcony to -40 ^aboutWITH. Homemade boxes for potatoes are insulated, for example, with aluminum foil or foam. They are necessarily put on coasters. For low temperatures, two drawers are needed: one is placed in the other, and the space between them is filled with polystyrene, sawdust, and rags. The easiest heating - incandescent lamps, held there, in the inter-space.

Storage of potatoes in the porch

Often in the vestibules of apartments there is a place for a couple of boxes, which is what the townspeople use. Common corridors are not worth littering, but you can put a few buckets of potatoes in boxes in them. If several apartments are separated by a common door with a lock, this is a common option. As a rule, the temperature in the corridor is not too close to optimal, but it is clearly lower than in the apartment, and potatoes can be stored in ordinary drawers or nets for 2-3 months.

Potato storage in the apartment, at home

Storing potatoes in the refrigerator is a bad choice: in closed bags it will deteriorate quickly, and in open ones it will poison the atmosphere and spoil other products. And the volume of the refrigerator is small. Therefore, in the apartment you need to find a suitable place.

How to choose a place

Usually they try to place potatoes directly in the kitchen, although this is not an ideal option. The coldest place is usually near the doors (including the balcony), but even there the temperature is rarely below 15-16 ^aboutC, therefore, we will focus on the maximum of the month. Sometimes they use cool pantries, if any. In the kitchen, potatoes are usually placed under the sink in a wooden box or basket. As a rule, this place is closed from the light, it is normally ventilated. Since it is difficult to store potatoes in an apartment, some tricks often come to the rescue, the simplest of which is laying it with mint leaves or wormwood. Well, if the beets are nearby (in fact, the same tricks are used outside the apartment).

Types of storage containers

Potatoes can be stored in any “breathing” container:

• linen bags;
• nylon nets;
• wooden crates;
• wicker baskets.

The volume may be different, but in the apartment it rarely makes sense to keep more than a bag of potatoes (that is, 4-5 buckets). It is bad to keep potatoes in plastic bags without holes or in any metal container.

How to make a box

Since an insulated box is not required for storage in the apartment, it can be made from any material at hand: timber, boards, plywood. The most convenient is a board about 5 cm wide; between them they must leave a gap of 1-2 cm for air access. If it is impossible to put the box in the dark, it is covered with a dark breathable fabric. In the case of balcony storage, it makes sense to make a box with double walls and thermal insulation: there are many design options.

Compact Options

Since there is always not enough space at home, they try to place potatoes in a variety of places where you can create relative coolness and darkness. Allocate one of the drawers in dressers and headsets, place the nets behind the doors, under the table, under the bed. Often you can find mini-vaults under the removable lid of a soft corner. Often a potato bucket is kept even in the toilet room.

Features of storage of washed and peeled potatoes

If the potatoes are washed, it will be stored worse. True, careful drying can mitigate this deterioration; some gardeners always wash potatoes even before laying them in the cellar, but they dry them perfectly before that. It is better to put poorly dried washed potatoes in the refrigerator and spend within a week. Sometimes you have to store peeled potatoes, but this is an extreme case: we are talking about "storage" only for several hours. It is best to leave it in cold water (however, part of the starch will be lost). It can be scalded with boiling water, then it will blacken more slowly. Sometimes peeled potatoes are even frozen, but you must understand that after that it will be sweet and not suitable for all dishes.

Major storage errors, or why potatoes wilt, turn green and rot

If the potato is not stored properly, it can turn black, turn green, begin to sprout and decay ahead of time. Most often to blame for this:

• wrong choice of variety;
• bookmark substandard product;
• joint storage of potatoes with fruits;
• unsuitable temperature and humidity;
• non-observance of storage periods.

The basic rule for any storage is the periodic revision of stocks and the immediate removal from the warehouse of a spoiled product.

Video: potato storage

Reviews

The third season I use a balcony thermal container on a glassed balcony, 300 L cellar. I like. I set the temperature to +2 degrees. The potato does not freeze and does not germinate.

Many of us store potatoes in garages. There is still a pit in the basement, and there is already potato in it. There was such a case. Comrade’s potato is stored like that. Well, okay. And the winter was somehow snowy and the garages were covered with terrible force. And then it warmed up sharply - well, everyone knows that. Water in the garage to him and flowed in large quantities. Only our land is sandy, the water has passed, the potatoes have been wetted and gone into the ground. Comrade escaped, ran to see (garages about km. from housing). He looks, and there already put things in order without him. Mice pulled all of his potato harvest out of the pit “to dry”. You see, they know, underground residents, how to save supplies from floods

It is checked (to lay in layers - to alternate layers of fern leaves and layers of potato). In addition, fern leaves are convenient to handle, put in a bag and carry back to the forest.

Washed potatoes can be stored for a long time in the refrigerator in the vegetable compartment, there will be no land in the refrigerator and in the kitchen, and it is convenient to immediately clean such potatoes.

Potatoes are stored for a long time subject to conditions and high-quality preparation of tubers. However, in the absence of a cellar, it makes no sense to stock up in large volumes: it will be easier to periodically buy the required amount in a store or on the market.