How I Store 200 lbs of Potatoes WITHOUT a Root Cellar

we grew close to 300 pounds of potatoes here on our homestead this year i love growing potatoes but if you're gonna grow them in quantity you have to know how to store them so they don't go bad in this video i'll show you exactly how we harvest our potatoes to maximize their shelf life and how we store them without having a root cellar so i've pushed my timeline as long as i can we're down to the wire we got to get the potatoes harvested like today potato patch isn't far away but uh we're gonna have a lot of potatoes to carry and i don't want to do it by hand so i am taking the truck over there hold on i'm going to recruit some child labor you guys can help me um harvest potatoes please because i need all the help i can [Music] i'll just get me what this [Music] hey guys come help me get some tools out of the greenhouse [Music] yep is it good yeah [Music] so i'm a little nervous to see how these look it was super cold last weekend like below zero and there was no way i could get the potatoes out before that happened so i'm hoping that the ones that were close to the top of the soil aren't ruined so we'll see so this potato was out of the ground you can see it got frozen and it's super squishy and gross so this whole thing was our potato patch this year for the first time we had rows on each side of this walkway we did yukon gold and russet and they grew great we just had a simple uh sprinkler line a little drip system out here and it was pretty much planted and forget it i think this is the easiest potato crop i've ever grown whoa just grab one just grab a bottle how did your face get so dirty [Music] let's see what we have here we have a potato plant and you won't wait to harvest them until they're dried up like this um which is usually laid into the fall this is what i do i'll leave them until i'm ready and then i kind of pull it out a little bit so it starts to loosen the soil so thankfully these potatoes that were under the ground are fine they're nice and firm they're just like we want them to be so probably lose a couple that were smooshy from being frozen but i think the majority will be okay i like to use our hands as much as possible because otherwise i am really good at stabbing the potatoes with the shovels and we just kind of have to dig around in there like a treasure hunt until we find oh there's one over here guys look at that big one holy moly there's one right there mom there you go good job another one it's like gold you get it good job good job okay let's see so then once we get all we can find with our fingers and then i go in with my shovel the soil right now is perfect for harvest so we had snow about a week ago so it's just a little bit damp but it's not muddy and it's not going to be sticking to the potatoes if you harvest them when everything's too wet it's not only a pain but you have to really be careful that they're dry before you put them into storage [Music] it's even alive it's alive huh i never had to just found the worm go back in the dirt there you go so this is what you don't want to happen like it i got it good we can still use this one so we're gonna have to use it up right away since i stabbed it basically so for potato [Music] chad where did you get the cucumber that's an old cucumber that's pretty gross it's okay he can have it so we went in for a water break and i changed because it's hot it's seven it's 72 degrees and it's november but anyway we're back at it we got all the yukon gold's pretty much harvested now we're on to the russets which were on the other side of the row so everybody went got their mud boots took a little break you guys ready to get started again so usually i buy seed potatoes and that's what i plant in the early summer but this year because of covet all the seed potatoes were sold out so what we did we just went to the grocery store and got bags of regular old organic potatoes i cut them up into chunks and we planted those and it worked really really good so we got many many pounds of potatoes for like 10 bucks worth of grocery store potatoes not too bad we did lose some to the frost but not not horrible and next year i think we will hopefully double this but i'm happy with this for 2020. [Music] we're planning on building an actual old-time root cellar in this location by the garden next year but since it's not ready right now we'll have to find another way to store this year's harvest [Music] so the first thing you want to do when you're storing potatoes long term is cure them and generally people will do that by harvesting them and then laying them out in a single layer in a dark place for a couple days up to a week or so now these have been sitting in the ground for quite a while they were very dry so i just let them sit in boxes in our [Music] shop the school room is not an ideal place to sort potatoes but it's cold and mucky and wet outside and i'm too lazy to haul them over to our big shop do the sorting and then hold them back in here so if i have to mop the floor when we're done so be it i'm kind of curious how many pounds we have you guys want to weigh these okay so that's 14 pounds bridge go ahead and write 14 over on the board we'll keep track of each box 10 14 plus okay it's pretty heavy 36 pounds on that box okay there's our counts what's the grand total 218 pounds is that what you got yeah i let you cheat and use a calculator instead of you doing it by hand okay 218 pounds we've probably already harvested and used throughout the late summer and into fall about 50 pounds so that is close to 300 pounds of potatoes we grew this year with just a couple bags of cheap organic grocery store potatoes as our starting point now we just got to save these babies for later in the year because i can't eat all of these in the next couple of weeks that wouldn't be good most of these are pretty good because we sorted out the bad ones during harvest oh here's one we missed you can see that line and there's a squishy spot here this was one that was sitting too close to the surface when our cold snap hit a couple weeks ago so we can probably use part of this potato right away i'd have to cut into it or we can feed it to the chickens so i'm gonna set him aside so it is the light sunlight or other light that causes potatoes to turn green so sometimes if they're not covered sufficiently with soil that's why we get green spots and that's why it's really important if they're in storage they need to be in a really really dark place whoops here's one that i cut with a shovel so it needs to be set out used quickly squishy squishy okay put it aside oh squishy oh yeah that's squishy too we're done sorting you got most of the squishy ones out you can see here by our pile of rejects that for us leaving the potatoes in the ground over the winter and harvesting them as needed is not a good option uh because we live in a place where the ground freezes solid and it just gets super cold the good news is we don't have to throw all of these away we just need to use them up so i have a roast in the crock pot for supper tonight i'm going to trim off the damaged portions of these guys and we will eat them so this unfinished portion of our basement is where i keep my potatoes and onions throughout the winter like i said it's not the most ideal place it's a little warmer than i would like it's not humid but it's way better than keeping them upstairs where the house is much warmer if you have an unheated garage or shop that won't freeze solid that's even better it is pitch black in this room once the door is shut and the light is off so it keeps it very very dark which is exactly what you want i would suggest storing in cardboard boxes avoid the urge to do plastic unless the plastic has a ton of ventilation like you have a plastic crate that would be okay but a plastic tub like that would not because the potatoes need room to breathe otherwise they will get moldy and nasty someday i'd like to have enough of these wooden crates to store all my potatoes in those but i don't quite have enough yet it's important that no matter where you store these in a legitimate root cellar or in your basement that you check them about once a week rummage through to see if anyone is going bad sprouts on a bad thing just grab the ones that are sprouting knock the sprouts off and you can go ahead and eat them is it good uh-huh tastes like dirt not really okay this is good it's good tastes like a raw potato with dirt on it yeah glad your gloves are clean sage immune systems of steel if you want to check out the rest of the stuff i have stashed in my basement pantry watch this video

Channel: Jill Winger - The Homestead Mentor

Views: 494,158

Rating: 4.9202418 out of 5

Keywords: root cellar, cold storage, food storage, storing potatoes, the prairie homestead, Jill Winger, jill winger the prairie homestead, How I Store 200 lbs of Potatoes WITHOUT a Root Cellar, Storing 200 pounds of potatoes, how to, homesteading

Id: tbcITu_Q1-Q

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2020