It is no secret that growing a good harvest is not all. It is important to preserve vegetables and fruits properly. Only in this case the available crop will be edible throughout the winter and spring.
Potato storage locations
For this vegetable, you need to highlight a dark room. A cellar or basement that does not freeze is best. It is worth remembering that it is impossible to store potatoes in the light. In this case, in its tubers, a substance harmful to humans begins to be produced - solanine.
At what temperature should potatoes be stored? The most favorable range for it is in the range of two to three degrees. In the event that it is cooler in the basement or in the cellar, the vegetable will acquire a sweetish unpleasant taste. Tubers must be dried before storing. To do this, just hold them for several hours in the open air.
Potatoes are well stored in bins. You can also use boxes in which holes are previously made for ventilation. In the bins, the tubers are covered with a layer not exceeding one and a half meters in height. If boxes are used for storing vegetables , then they are placed on a stand, the height of which is fifteen to twenty centimeters. In this case, leave a small distance to the wall.
Potatoes can simply be scattered on one layer of straw, covering it with another. Defective tubers are recommended to be postponed and used first.
When freezing the top layer of potatoes, it develops rot and various diseases. Such damage should be avoided by covering the vegetable with empty bags or boxes. If between tubers left for the winter, put two or three apples, then they will not let sprouts.
Part of the harvest, as a rule, is intended for consumption at the very end of winter or spring. This potato is best preserved in a pit. It is pulled out in the fall in dense, dry soil. The depth of such a pit can be from 0.6 to 1.5 meters. At the bottom of the store put the board. In addition, the pit is equipped duct. It can be made from ordinary plastic pipe. Boards are laid on the top layer of potatoes, they are covered with a one and a half meter layer of earth and covered with straw.
Storage preparation
Whether potatoes will lie well depends largely on the condition of the tubers. That is why before placing the vegetable in the storehouse, it will need to be carefully sorted. Damaged tubers will not be able to lie for a long time, therefore, even during the harvest period, they need to be dug with a pitchfork with wide teeth. In addition, you need to move the harvested vegetables in boxes or in baskets having thick walls. Compliance with these simple rules to avoid mechanical damage to the tubers.
Before storing the vegetable should not be washed. The tubers need only to be dried.
Cellar or underground accommodation
Where to store potatoes in the winter? Does the house have an underground or cellar? They become ideal spaces to accommodate the crop. Before laying potatoes, they must be thoroughly dried, cleaned of debris and whitened with milk of lime. In order to effectively remove excess moisture should be checked whether the vent or chimney work.
How to store potatoes in the cellar in winter? Pledged vegetables can be fresh for a long time, if the room does not have high temperature and high dampness. To create the necessary conditions, the cellar or underground should be aired in a timely manner. This can be done through an exhaust pipe or vent. In the cold winter period, you will also need to ensure that the vegetables do not freeze. To do this, the outside of the room is covered with sawdust, leaves or peat.
Root storage in the apartment
How to dispose of the harvest of the citizens who do not own cellar? Indeed, for them, storing potatoes at home is a real problem. Harvested bags delivered to the apartment are stuffed into cabinets and pantries, and sometimes just under the bed. Tubers are often taken out onto a loggia or balcony.
However, at what temperature can potatoes be stored under such conditions? Obviously, it will be far from ideal.
How to store potatoes in the apartment? Of course, it is best placed in the loggia or balcony. However, even if they are glazed, the temperature here on cold days can drop below zero. In this case, how to store potatoes on the balcony or loggia? This can only be done by insulating the tubers. The easiest way would be to wrap bags of tubers with an unnecessary cotton blanket. In order for the potatoes to be properly stored, it is important that there is air access to it.
Special boxes
How to store potatoes in an apartment if, in addition to the balcony, there is no suitable place for a vegetable, and the option with an old blanket does not suit you? In this case, you will need to use another method. It is recommended to make the insulated storage box potatoes. It will be possible to keep the crop in it even in the worst frosts.
The potato storage box has a design that helps maintain positive temperature in its internal volume, as well as air circulation. What should be its size, the owners decide. One should only bear in mind that a container having a volume of one cubic meter can accommodate about three hundred and fifty kilograms of tubers.
Crate Making
For proper storage of potatoes, first of all, you will need to create the necessary temperature conditions. To do this, it is important to make the bottom, walls, and also the box lid double. The resulting airspace should be filled with polystyrene foam or sawdust. Simply put, you will need to make two boxes of different sizes. The smaller is placed inside the larger. The air space between their walls should not be less than ten centimeters wide.
Thick plywood is suitable for making the case of the box. You can use lining or tongue- and-groove boards. The box outside must be painted or upholstered with plastic sheets or linoleum, which does not have a base. This will increase the moisture resistance of the structure.
In order to even in the coldest days of the potatoes on the balcony does not freeze on the inner walls of the box, some craftsmen assemble one or two incandescent bulbs. Their power is low, only 15 watts.
What is the best temperature for storing potatoes and other vegetables? Of course, with constant. And in order for this condition to be ensured, it is desirable to provide for the installation of a thermal relay in the lamp circuit. It should automatically turn on and off the lamps in case of temperature fluctuations.
What to do if there is no thermal relay ? Then in the box for monitoring the state of storage conditions should be a thermometer. It should be borne in mind that from the light of lamps, potatoes can turn green. To avoid this, the top layer of tubers should be covered with a dark cloth. You can also paint the bulbs with dark (but not black) varnish.
The voltage to the lamps from the network is fed using a waterproof wire. Pass it through the hole available in the window unit. A switch for this entire system is located in the room, by the balcony door. If you make a glazed window in the side wall of the box or release a bunch of LEDs from it, you can control the burning of lamps without leaving your apartment.
In order to prevent strong cooling of the potatoes when opening the box, it is desirable to provide a second lid in its design. This small inner removable device is made of chipboard. A small hatch is cut out in the center of such a lid.
To ensure the preservation of heat, you will also need a sealant made of foam rubber or porous rubber. It is glued between the cover and the body. But the back slit with loops will need to be sealed from the outside. To do this, you need a piece of felt or dermatin.
Air circulation
How to store potatoes in a box made for these purposes? It is important that the tubers are not decayed, and not chilled in the bottom corners. The circulation of warm air, which must be provided inside the box, will prevent this. A wooden grill made of slats having a thickness of 20-30 cm and rounded upper corners will help to cope with the task. It is placed on the bottom of the box before laying the potatoes. In addition, two ducts must be installed in the upper corners of the walls. They are arranged in such a way that the vents below are located at the level of the grill. In this case, they do not cover everything tubers.
Anyone who uses just such a method of storing potatoes in an apartment in the winter claims that the root crop does not freeze even at temperatures as high as -15 degrees.
Using a box in an apartment
Potatoes can be stored in the kitchen in winter. In this case, you need a box whose design is similar to that described above. The only difference is that the kitchen option should ensure the preservation of the tubers not when heating the internal space, but when it is cooled. This can be done by natural or forced flow of cold air from the street. The heat-insulating layer of the box with this storage option is designed to prevent heat transfer between the structure and the living room.
Forced ventilation can be achieved by using the supply air fan. It should have a small capacity and be mounted in a sealed enclosure. In this case, the material for the duct can be a plastic or metal tube. A piece of gas or rubber hose will do. Such an air duct is removed from the space between the grill and the bottom to the outside, passing it through the opening of the window unit.
Storage temperature
As a rule, we do not think at all that the tubers lying in our apartment or in the cellar are nothing but living organisms. During storage, they can dry out, since moisture is evaporated during “breathing”. At the same time, starch is consumed, which turns into sugar, and that, in turn, releases water and carbon dioxide. The oxygen enters the vegetable and the formation of formed elements from it occurs through lentils (small holes in the peel).
It is worth remembering that the higher the temperature at which the potatoes are stored, the more intense the process of “breathing”. Therefore, tubers in the heat quickly become flabby.
What is the best temperature for storing potatoes? It should be between two and three degrees. The optimum air humidity is 85-90%.
Negative effect on tubers low temperature. At zero, the process of converting starch into sugar begins. That is why dishes made from potatoes become tasteless, sugary-sweet.
If the temperature drops below minus one degree, then the vegetable freezes. At plus four and above, the tubers begin to sprout, which contribute to the accumulation of solanine.
Seed potato
Tubers are stored not only for cooking. In spring, a certain portion of the crop will be used for planting. By this time, the tubers should be small sprouts. This will significantly reduce the time before emergence on the bed of seedlings. For the appearance of sprouts, planting material is preheated.
Wet and light germination methods are also used. During this process, the optimal temperature of the room should be + 14-18 degrees.