Homesteader Depot

Tag: potatoes

  • How (And Why) To Cure Potatoes Before Storing Them

    How (And Why) To Cure Potatoes Before Storing Them

    Potatoes are such a great garden crop, if you can manage to grow them. They can keep for months throughout the winter, and are a great source of nutrients and calories. While they keep well in a dark, cool area like a root cellar or even a garage, there is a very important step you must take before storage: curing. 

    What is curing? 

    Curing potatoes is essentially letting them dry out before storing away. There are several advantages to curing:

    • All wet spots dry out that might otherwise contribute to rot
    • The skins will harden, allowing the potatoes to keep for much longer
    • Damaged spots of the potatoes can heal
    • You get a chance to inspect all of your potatoes and sort out the bad ones
    • You can sort by size and type, if desired

    How to cure potatoes

    It’s really very simple to cure potatoes, if you follow a few easy guidelines. The process is pretty simple, to start, you want to spread all your potatoes out on a surface, ideally covered with newspaper or torn up paper bags, and let sit for about 10 days or so.

    Air flow is the number one factor when choosing where and how to cure your potatoes. You want the potatoes to get plenty of air flow between each of them so spread them out, and you also want to be doing this in a well-ventilated area. In a well-ventilated garage or basement with a small fan, for example, might be ideal, but of course, since this might take up a lot of room you might have to improvise.

    Keep it dark: the darker this area, the better. You will of course have to turn on the light to check your potatoes from time to time and this won’t hurt, but don’t set up in an area that has a lot of windows and regular, 12-hour daylight. Light will ruin your potatoes.

    Keep it cold, as cooler temperatures, below 60 degrees, will keep the potatoes fresh and move along the curing process.

    Once your potatoes are all dried out, and this might involve inspecting them pretty carefully, they’re ready to store! There are multiple ways to store potatoes (which we might have to cover at some point in the future!) but the same rules for curing apply: somewhere dark, cool, and with decent airflow. If your curing was successful, they’ll keep for months!

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  • How to Freeze Raw Potatoes

    How to Freeze Raw Potatoes

    Keeping potatoes in a root cellar is a common way to store these essential root veggies through the winter, but plenty of people don’t have root cellars! Canning is another option, but that usually takes a pressure canner.

    If you find yourself with a lot of potatoes you’d like to store for a long time but don’t have a cellar or a pressure canner, freezing them is a great option-if you do it right. It can be kind of tricky, so here are some tips to ensure they remain fresh in the freezer.

    Use Fresh Potatoes

    Don’t use potatoes that have started to turn. If you want them to keep fresh in the freezer, use the freshest potatoes you can find that haven’t yet started to sprout or get black spots.

    Vinegar

    Before preparing them for freezing, cut them up and rinse them in cold water with a little vinegar. This will help preserve them.

    Related Article:  Creative Ways to Freeze Eggs

    Blanch

    Before freezing, blanch your potatoes in boiling water for 3-5 minutes, then cool and let dry completely.

    Banish oxygen

    Potatoes usually turn brown or black after exposure to oxygen, so if you can, vacuum-seal your potatoes before freezing. This will keep them in a completely oxygen-free environment and as fresh as possible in the freezer. But if you do not have a vacuum sealer, you can put them in a zip-lock bag with a paper towel and try to squeeze out as much as the air as possible.

    Thaw at room temperature

    For some reason, if you thaw in a bowl of water in the sink rather than in the refrigerator, frozen potatoes are less likely to turn black. For instance if you are planning on cooking with them in the evening, take them out of the freezer and put them in a bowl of room-temperature water in the sink to thaw throughout the day.

    To use your thawed potatoes, just throw in any dish as you would fresh potatoes. They work best in longer-cooking recipes like stews, soups and chowders. You can even use them for mashed potatoes! Enjoy!

     

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  • How to Build a Potato Tower

    How to Build a Potato Tower

     

    Potato towers are a way to grow more potatoes in a smaller area by growing vertical.  There are a variety of techniques to build potato towers using different materials but the basic principles are the same.  This article will describe how to build a potato tower using fencing or hardware cloth.

     

    • You will need some hog wire, no climb fence, or hardware cloth that is 4 feet tall and at least 6 feet long, at least 2 stakes to support the fencing but preferably 4, wire or zip ties to secure the fencing to the stakes, compost, straw, and sprouted seed potatoes.
    • First, drive your stakes into the ground. If you have 4 stakes, put them in a square pattern with dimensions that will allow the fencing to wrap completely around, if you have only 2 stakes you will make a round tower with the stakes on opposite sides.
    • Secure your fencing to the first 3 stakes leaving one end open for you to work in, or both of the stakes with one end open.
    • Add soil or compost in the center and straw around the outside so that the soil will not spill out. Once you have 8 inches of depth plant your seed potatoes and cover them with more soil or compost.
    • Secure the fencing to close up the tower

    Now all you have to do is wait until the potato plants have grown out of the soil to a height of 6 to 8 inches, once they have, add more soil until the plants are only an inch or so out above the surface, and add more straw to the perimeter to contain the soil.  Keep the tower wet, it will drain much more than the ground will and will need to be watered regularly.  To harvest, simply remove the fencing, no need to dig and risk damaging your potatoes.

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  • 3 Tips for Steady Potato Harvests

    3 Tips for Steady Potato Harvests

    If you don’t have a root cellar, then you probably don’t want to have a 100-pound potato harvest.  But that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to grow 100 pounds of potatoes or more.  Instead of planting for one large harvest of potatoes, here are 3 tips for getting a steady supply of smaller harvests that could easily exceed the amount you could get from one large harvest.

     

    Plant Early

    While waiting until after the last frost to plant some crops might be the way to go, potatoes can handle cold soil well.  If your zone is particularly cold or winter is lasting a little longer than usual you can plant them under a layer of cover to get them out early.  Extending your growing season will increase the number of harvests you can get in a year.  Even if a frost comes, the potatoes will survive.

    Sequential Planting

    As much as the room in your garden allows for, plant additional potatoes as times goes on.  This will give you more small harvests, instead of one large harvest.  This will give you a steady supply and reduce pests, spoilers, and the need to store large amounts of potatoes.

    Variety

    Planting all of the same potatoes will mean that they will all mature at the same time.  It will also increase the likelihood of pests or disease spreading.  Even if you plant them at the same time, you will have weeks in between your first and last harvest.

     

    While soil conditions and other factors that are zone specific will affect the length of your potato growing season, these tips should help you to get the most out of whatever season you do get and allow you to enjoy eating the fruits of your labors throughout the year.

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  • 3 Tips for Growing Potatoes

    3 Tips for Growing Potatoes

    Potatoes are one of the best staple foods for almost any diet. They’re full of fiber, complex carbohydrates, and nutrients that can enhance anyone’s health. Better yet, potatoes are actually pretty easy to grow in your garden, making them even more attractive to homesteaders everywhere. Here are a few tips and tricks to help you grow better potatoes in your garden.

    Pick a Sunny Spot

    No matter what kind of potatoes you’re growing, always pick a spot that gets full sun. You should also ensure that the soil is light, loose, and slightly acidic (ideally with a PH of 5.0-7.0), but you really can grow potatoes in almost any kind of soil, so you don’t have to worry about this too much.

    Rotate Your Potato Crops

    Potatoes can be fairly hard on soil, so don’t grow them in the same place in your garden every year. Instead, rotate them each year and make sure that you don’t repeat the same area more than once every three to four years.

    Start Sprouting Before You Plant

    You should plant your potatoes early in the spring, as soon as the soil is workable, and then you can harvest them once the ground temperature reaches about 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Before you plant them, though, go ahead and cut your seed potatoes and place them inside the house in a place where they can get some sun. Do this about two to three weeks before you plant them, and they’ll start to sprout. This will help them grow stronger and larger when you plant them.

    Potatoes are a hearty crop, but you do want to make sure that they don’t experience a hard freeze without protection. And you should keep their soil weeded and protected from insects and pests. Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to a great crop of potatoes this year.

    Sources:
    http://blog.seedsavers.org/blog/tips-for-growing-potatoes
    http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/7-ways-grow-potatoes
    http://www.unwins.co.uk/potato-growing-guide-ggid9.html

     

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