As a sustainable alternative to refrigerated or electrically cooled storage for crops needing cool damp conditions, traditional root cellars are a good option. With a good in-ground root cellar, potatoes can be stored for 5-8 months.Potatoes which have become sweet can be brought back to normal flavor by holding them at about 70F/21C for a week or two before using. This gives the potatoes a strange taste, and will cause them to blacken if fried. Avoid storage much below 40F (5C), as these low temperatures will cause some of the starches in the potatoes to turn to sugars.Continue to ventilate as needed during times of cool temperatures, to maintain the cellar in the ideal temperature range.
Avoid wildly fluctuating temperatures, as the stress can cause “physiological aging” which among other things, inclines the potatoes towards sprouting.(In summer, potatoes can be stored at 60-75F (15-25C) for up to six weeks – but at higher temperatures they will sprout.) We want to cool the cellar whenever a cool, mild night or chilly day is forecast, to 40-45F (5-7 C) if possible in late fall, and as close to that as we can get, in summer. After week 4, ventilation for air exchange is no longer needed, as the potatoes are now dormant.For weeks 2-4, the temperature goal is 50☏ (10C), ventilation is needed about once a week.Restack the crates in the cellar, remembering to leave an airspace between crates and walls.If we sort too soon, we miss some potatoes with tiny bad spots, and need a second sorting. If left unsorted for longer, rot does spread. Very little additional rotting occurs after a two week curing and sorting. We find that if we do this one sorting after two weeks, we don’t need to check them any more after that – pretty much anything that was going to rot has already done so.It’s important to do this 14-21days after harvest, and not leave it longer, to minimize the spread of rot. Usually we bring the crates out to the top of the cellar steps in rotation. After two weeks, the potatoes need sorting to remove Use First and Compost ones, keeping the varieties separate.Try hard to avoid having the cellar cool down, then warm up.Air at night if nights are mild and days too warm.Air in the daytime if nights are too cold and days are mild.Ventilate when the temperature is 0-20 Fahrenheit degrees (0-11 Celsius degrees) cooler than the goal: This is a dark hard black nodule of dead cells in the middle of the potato. If not ventilated, the potatoes get Black Heart. The potatoes are still “alive” and respiring, and will heat up if left closed in. As well as cooling to a good storage temperature, for the two weeks between harvest and sorting, the root cellar needs 6-9 hours of ventilation every two or three days.(It’s easier to cool the cellar in the fall.) After the Oct/Nov harvest of the June-planted potatoes, we leave the door open on mild nights or days every 2 or 3 days, and close it later. In June/July, after harvesting the March-planted potatoes, we leave the door open at night almost every night for a week, then every other night, and close it early in the morning.This allows the skins to toughen up, cut surfaces to heal over, and some of the sugars to convert to the more storable starches. After the harvest, the potatoes need a surprisingly warm temperature, 60-75☏ (15-25C) with good ventilation, for two weeks of curing.Store in a moist, completely dark cellar, avoiding excess moisture.At 6 or 7 am next day, we put the crates in the cellar and close the door. At dusk, we cover them with a tarp to keep dew off and keep them dry. In summer we stack the crates of harvested potatoes under tree near the cellar the first night, to lose some heat.Like most root vegetables, potatoes store better if they are not washed before storage.We store our potatoes in open plastic crates on plastic pallets, which allow ventilation but not rotting or holding of fungal spores. Before the potato harvest, leave the cellar open for a couple of days to warm up to the temperature of the potatoes (to reduce condensation and rot.).Here are our “Root Cellar Warden” instructions: We harvested our March-planted potatoes 21 days ago, and we are in the process of sorting them and managing conditions in our root cellar to cure the potatoes and help them store well.
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