Easy Trick to Store a YEAR'S Worth of Potatoes | Harvesting Potatoes 

I remember when I was a kid. I stayed with an elderly friend of my mother. It was in the fall of the year. One day she got a bag of potato peelings from the drawer of her fridge. She said come on we're going to plant potatoes!! I laughed ,but followed her and helped. Well in the spring I went to stay with her. She said come on we're going out to dig potatoes . Of course I laughed and followed. We raked the straw back dug down in and. Guess what we found? Potatoes I was so surprised 😮. My mom had told me if Nora says it will work. You can count on it.

My dad always dug out a wide basin in the soil, filled it with potatoes, then covered the while thing with straw, old clothes, carpet, cardboard etc then the soil and they lasted all winter. In the UK it's called a clamp.

Since I have no basement or root cellar I used to bury mine in a trench like this until I tried something new last year that worked well for me. After digging and curing them I took a dog crate/kennel and lined it with straw…then a layer of potatoes…continuing all the way to the top of the crate with layering. I made sure to cull anything that needed to be used first and put those in a basket lined with straw as well…I just know I need to use the basket first before digging into my crate. My potatoes did very well in our garage where it’s cool and dark. Still had good potatoes in that crate I was using when planting time rolled around again this year. On another note…my last crop of carrots every year I leave in my raised bed and just cover with 6” straw. When I need fresh carrots I part the straw and harvest what I need. Perfection for my growing zone in the PNW. I still had carrots I was harvesting in spring when planting time rolled around again. The carrots won’t continue growing in winter months but they did stay green topped and were fresh, sweet and crunchy.

I have 3 large garbage cans buried in the ground and use them as root cellars for my carrot Onion and potatoes n butternut squash.. this summer I'm going to bury 3 more ☺️

When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle grew potatoes enough for there family and our family. They used a potato digger and us kids would gather them and put them in bushel baskets, or burlap bags. The adults would load them up and take them to the dirt floor basement and dump them for storage, and yes Melissa, no washing the potatoes. I miss those days of helping each other and share the bounty. Love your channel.

If your stored potatoes start to shrivel up and sprout but you're too far away from planting time, you can gently rub off the sprouts and submerge your potatoes in a bucket of water to rehydrate them. An hour or more would be good, depending on how shriveled they are. Then take your potatoes out of the water and lay them out to dry on the serface then store them again. You can "keep" your potatoes until you plant or even till you harvest your crop after summer!! Yes. So if you harvest and store your potatoes correctly and you monitor them, you can keep your potatoe for a whole year! Use your smaller one to plant as seed and pick out any that starts to rot, it will spread. If potatoes are left stored in water on their surface, they will rot. You can use a fan to dry them but you do need to keep your humidity up or submerge them in water. I live in potatoe country and everyone here knows how to keep potatoe. We have to, we supply many french fry plants ALL YEAR. If your cellar is a little warm, you can set barrels in the coolest corner and add straw and insulate your potaoes from the warmer air. I keep mine in my celler in several potato barrels and when I get some to replentish my box up stairs in the kitchen, I just give them a quick look to make sure everthing it a-okay. We never havecto buy potaoes here or grow them, we just go to the fields around our houses AFTER the farmers dig them. With permission from the farmers, we go and "clean" the fields from potatoes that dropped over the harvesters and the farmers like that, less volenteers that grow next year and we grow A LOT of seed potaotes for the whole east coast. They dont like volunteers mixing in their seed. We live in zone 4 and get very cold winters where the ground freezes solid! 30° to 40° below and yes, some can accually survive the winter up here. Great video! 😉

In Ireland we used to dig the potatoes and put them in pits, which were about 2ft high and as long as you wanted. Then they covered them in rushes and then a lair of soil about 4 to 5 inches thick. That kept them all winter.

A message from all the Field Mice and Voles: Thank you for providing us a winter home fully stocked with food for the winter, we will feast all winter long, and will give thanks to our gracious hosts by going forth and multiplying! We have a raised bed with 1/4" hardware cloth along the bottom to keep out the Voles, and grass clippings work better than straw or hay because it keeps out the water, even during a heavy rain. One method is to bury a barrel in the yard in a hole 1 foot deeper than the barrel is tall, then put your cured potato's in it, then cover the top. It keeps out the critters and is deep enough for a hard winter.

Hey there! I'm up here in Alaska where we get sub-freezing temps for up to 4 months. I ended up burying my taters, covering them with insulation and a water-shedding membrane (tarp). Mound to shed any snow that melts and the snow that doesn't melt serves as insulation. The r-value is about 1 per inch, so 2' of snow is R-24. This works! I so need to do a video to show how to do it where the ground typically freezes up to 9' deep and we get a ton of snow for months. There are more tricks to get you to that point not shown in this video. When you have 500 pounds of taters, you gotta store them somewhere!

As a kid in the 60s&70s: my mother and grandmothers: when they had shriveled = wiggly; potatoes carrots celery radishes onions ETC.: they cleaned & cut & put them in cold water & let them set a few hours or overnight and then they firmed up and was used!

My grandmother grew up in Bavaria. Her father farmer buried the potatoes in the ground to preserve for the family through winter months and to hide from the German soldiers.

Gophers taught me the best way to store spuds in a root cellar. One fall they used one corner of my root cellar as a dump site to dump dirt from their tunnel making. In the process they covered up a small pile of spuds. I discovered this a full year later and when I uncovered them they were just as firm and moist with no sprouting as the day I put them in the cellar. Usually in my area (zone5) spuds only last six months then they sprout and shrivel up.

I've done this by accident. Sometimes, I am not able to harvest all of the potatoes because they're hiding or I just miss them. I routinely cover my raised beds with straw (*not* hay! Hay has too many weed seeds in it!) and the next year I find potato "volunteers" coming up in places I didn't know I had potatoes! 😸

I never knew that about storing potatoes and onions together.

I put the potatoes in a plastic grocery bag in a single layer, tie the bag shut and place the bag in a sunny window for about 2 weeks. And don't forget to poke a few holes in the bags for vents. I works really well and I've kept sweet potatoes for over a year and then planted some to grow more.

We always dug a 3 or 4 ft deep hole , put straw on the bottom and lined up the potatoes then straw on top , lined up potatoes more straw on top more potatoes and on and on till you get to the top, then a large mound of straw, put a piece of plastic to cover the mound, cutting a 6 inch circle in the middle of the plastic, then having straw stick through the hole and cover the mound with dirt leaving the straw sticking through the hole uncovered with the dirt. Its called a clamp or potato pit.

I used hay once. Once was enough. I used it on the winter veggies. So much work was needed in the spring to clear the garden of all the new growth from the hay.

Also, I am in the south and it rarely freezes and hardly ever snows. It's super humid too. Unfortunately, sometimes it rains a bit too much, but my potatoes are in large pots above ground so drainage shouldn't be a problem. Thanks for the "below ground root cellar method" info. 🤗

Great video. I accidentally stored some in my raised boxes a few years ago and haven’t stopped. Great method for the PNW.

The onions causing the potatoes to sprout was new info to me. This fixed a problem I had with the produce I kept bagged on the kitchen counter.

Make a sandbox shaped box with a bit more depth if you can make a few then set your chickens loose on your hay they'll clean out the seeds turn it a bit then snatch up that hay at the end of the day an repeat with new hay if necessary depending on how much you need done

Thank you! This is GREAT info! I did not know that you can leave them in the ground.

We had an old freezer buried in the ground. All our root crops were dug and put into the freezer. I can’t do that where I live now because the water table is to high. Covering with leaves or straw has been a great method most winters.

This is a wealth of information Melissa! Worth pure gold! Thank God for you and Carolyn Thomas this year I have learned so much from you! Videos are in depth and practical! Thank you.❤

11:30 My great uncle told me that since ethylene gas is lighter than air, you can store onions higher than potatoes, and the ethylene gas will not cause the potatoes to sprout. Towards spring he will help his seed potatoes sprout by moving them to the top shelf where the onions are stored.

This is valuable information as if possible we all must be more self sufficient especially during these uncertain times. Great video.

Great info from a natural beauty!!

didn't know about the potatoes and onions being stored together 👍

In the uk and Ireland we call the burying of potatoes to store in this manner, (straw, soil, straw, soil) clamps, you can do this with most root crops and was the only way to preserve root veg back in the day.

We had a lot of mole activity this year, and they did get into some of the potatoes. I'm going to try this method with one bed, though.

Good morning Melissa. Once again another excellent video. with superb production values from a strong self-sujfficient woman. Thanks so much for sharing and have a wonderful Wednesday. 😉😉🌻🌻🌹🌹

Love it, great info. Thanks Melissa. Happy harvest!

Thanks, Melissa! Great content as usual!!

This is brilliant! I'm in the high desert and I think this will work here. Thank you!

I saw someone get a harvest by planting only the eyes. Experiment with this next year and see what you grow. Thanks for the inground storing tips.

Wow!!!!! I knew virtually none of this. Thank you for sharing your vast wealth of knowledge : )

This gal is a good presenter. Good info.

Very helpful! I'm learning potatoes and sweet potatoes

Thanks. Tips are always welcome 🙏

This is an awesome video ! This year My potatoes are going to sit in the garden for a while. I will watch the Moisture in the soil and the temps . Love the Video's !

Last year, we planted seed potatoes in a whiskey barrel. When it was time to harvest, we left a few potatoes to see if they would get any bigger. Well, we overwintered them outside in the same pot and now that it’s gotten warmer, they are growing foliage. Cannot wait to harvest them soon and see how they turned out.

Great video! Lots of great info. TFS 👍🥰🥔

Thanks for all the information.

I always trust gardeners that garden in sandals! Just feels right!

Thanks for all this great information. I’m an Oregonian and it rains a lot here.

Best video I’ve seen on potatoes. I’m in Arizona where it’s normally hot or hotter 🥵! First time I’ve ever tried potatoes. Just planted them yesterday. We’ll see if it’s possible in Arizona.

What climate zone are you in? Also when did you plant your potatoes for winter harvest?

Every day is a school day Thanks for sharing your knowledge ✌🏻❤️✊🏻🙏🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I live in northern New brunswick -35 -40°c 4 to 5 feet of snow . I make a nest on a high spot than pile potatoes in a hill cover them with , soil leaves ,soil ,leaves! I use lots of leaves. We usually get thaws during winter that is when I dig some up! Been doing it for years! Works great!!!

Maple leafs work very well, no seeds and they inhibit growth of the spuds and are free. Love your videos young lady. Thanks from an old man.

perfect timing!

We would dig a 4x4 square hole, generally about eighteen inches deep, layer straw, then potatoes or apples, covering with straw and then dirt and packed by the dirt with our feet, March or April we would dig these up an d have fresh apples , still crispy like they were just off the tree

Great idea for us new learners.

Thanks Melissa

I like that way to store potatoes since I do not have a root cellar. I do have a drying area, & I raise my potatoes in 5 gallon buckets. My storage in dark, cool area in buckets should work well. Thanks for the education.

I wonder if this would work, if you grow in 5 gallon buckets then take them in the garage when the plant died off and just take the entire bucket into a garage? It would be out of the rain/snow and the garage almost never freeze's. Thanks for any information

Very helpful info! Thank you!

I so enjoyed your explanation in this video of potato storing. I learned so much. I so need to find a companion like yourself to spend the next 20 years with. No one seems to be interested in life skills these days rather they want to live off the government and do nothing productive. Thanks

Excellent information Thank You!

Really appreciate tip on 🥔and how the potatoe is exposed to sunlight and greening Second time🥔 👍Thanks for your help!

Thank you for all this great information my internet friend.

The thing about having a lot of snow is... snow will insulate and prevent a deep frost. So it can work if you want to keep some of your potatoes in the ground until spring (under mulch, for initial low temps before the first snow accumulates). Then harvest in spring when the snow has melted. Note that if your soil is too rich it can lead to scabbing of the potato skins from the micro critters. Also works for carrots.

Beautiful and informative

I love this idea and am in a temperate enough climate to make it work but my fear is knowing the strew I’m getting is free of herbicides whether it be round up or Grazon? Are these not so much an issue for straw? I see people talking about it with manure and hay. Any thoughts? And I’m only halfway through the video so maybe you touch on that. Thanks

My grandparents banked sweet potatoes and red potatoes. Burying them in layers of hay and covering with dirt.

Thank you Ma'am!

Love this, new to potatoes but find storing in ground or in the case of citrus and avocadoes, on the tree for months to a yr or so is most valuable.

Excellent content.

Same applies to carrots--plant them in July so they're the perfect size when the growing season ends, cover them with leaves and straw, let snow insulate them further, and start digging them with snow and dirt shovels in December, and continue harvesting until spring. Just remember to mark your rows so you can find them!!!

Our 4 feet of snow starts in December leaves in May. Days are 20 to 30 below zero. Unless you got a root cellar they freeze and turn to mush

Great video , thanks .

Thank you great i formation on potatoes

Lovely accent. I learned a lot from this video. Many thanks.

One can also dig a plastic barrel in the ground as a small root cellar.

We used to put straw over potatoes in the garden to keep them all winter long.

Just Beautiful! Potatoe Potatoe Potatoe.😊

We can keep canna roots in-ground here in 7a - sometimes we get down to 5F, but not every year. I take in enough rhizomes to replant in case of a hard winter, but otherwise, the next year's seed and enough starch to feed a small army survives in ground throughout the winter.

I live in SW Washington. Would wood chips be a good insulator throughout the winter for the potatoes?

I burry ours on a mound of soil that never gets too wet. I dig a hole about 3 feet deep and set the potatoes close to each other without toughing. I put more soil between layers and then cover the top with cardboard and then soil until the hole is filled to ground level. We grow potatoes 8 km out in the forest from our town.

Five+ years later, I'm still dealing with the timothy that sprouted from the bales I was donated for mulch.

No they won't turn to mush. I leave potatoes under mulch on the surface of the ground all winter long. I use a Ruth Stouth heavy much no dig system. They start growing in the spring when it warms. Its plenty cold here. Zone 5b with a USDA frost depth of 30+inches.

I need to do a search on your channel on how to actually grow them. Been thinking about it for some time and feeling like it’s that time!

Cover the straw with a trap or plastic sheet so straw dry suggestion that straw insulation wider and long than actual row have used this method at below zero this also works with other root crops like carrots turnips and parsnips little extra straw never hurts only uncover what you need and be sure to recover to keep frost out the straw can alway be worked into the soil in spring

Thanks Melissa for the wonderful tips. I am going to show this video to the wife, so you knows I'm not crazy lol..

Sandals 😂😂. Love your channel

We're in Deep East Texas: growing zone 8b. Potatoes are our first Spring crop, planting about Feb-March. We've always put potatoes on a bed of pine straw laid on a layer of lime under the house or barn. Only once have we harvested enough potatoes to last to the next Spring. ...7 kids can eat a lot! 😉

Last fall i stored my potatoes in an old freezer. I layered the potatoes along with shavings. They lasted all winter. Before i could clean out the freezer of unused potoes there was an accidental spray of water over my potatoes/shavings. I didn't think anything of it and got busy with other jobs around the house. I ended up not getting around to cleaning the freezer out a month or so later. What i found was amazing. Down deeper in the freezer the shavings were no longer loose, but tightly packed . I could hardly get the potato loosened enough to remove. I found littles potatoes attached to the bigger potatoes. Those fall potatoes were were doing there job as if they were in the ground. The garden patch came to me in my garage freezer. Its june 26th and those potatoes are firm and growing in wood shavings. Amazing

Excellent video. Great ideas. i also live in the PNW. I have some young potatoes I grew. I took out of ground, now wondering if these kind can stay in the ground all winter, until needed with the thinner skin.??

Love love love this topic and the way you present. Not look at me I’m so cute, strictly informational, packed with tidbits. I suspect you are gardening in WA?

I only leave out my baking potatoes and my egg sized ones to plant next year. Dry canning potatoes locks in the flavor, not like water canning them taking out flavor and making them mushy. The little ones I roast them in oven or you can boil or fry them 1/2 way done then freeze them like store bought steak fries and put on the seasoning before freezing them.

Thank ya ! I never heard of onions sprouting taters faster !! Never to old to learn 👍🇺🇸🙏

The old English word for a root cellar or storing vegetables in-ground was called a Hell. You'd literally put your potatoes in hell for the winter. 😆

What are your thoughts on storing seed potato in a refrigerator. We live in Maine, Z5. Harvest time Sept-Oct. But, next year's last frost is early May. That's keeping them dormant for 6-8 months. This year is our 3rd season planting Potatoes that are stored this way. We've had normally stored potatoes start chitting/sprouting at 45-50 degrees. Wrapped in paper towels, put in a dorm room sized fridge, they stay in total darkness, and between 34-40 degrees. Take out as weather forecast allows, sprout them and plant. Works and they grow fine.

That land is so pretty with the mountain in the background. It's soul food. If Washington state's gov wasn't so wacked, I'd move there in a flash.

Thank you, i was wondering why my potatoes turned to mush. they froze in the plastic buckets. i will put them in the ground next time.

What do you plant in place of potatoes when rotating?

Hrmm, I do believe I recognize those hills behind you! Welcome.

Thank you! Do sweet potatoes act in the same way ?? Many thanks!

Hi thanks for sharing. May I ask how do you deal with soil microorganisms and worms eating the potatoes or potatoes rotting?

If I kept potatoes in-ground into the winter, I’d have a remarkable pile of mush. Location matters.