At what temperature should I store potatoes? Keeping potatoes at home

It's no secret that growing a good harvest is not all. Vegetables and fruits are important to keep properly. Only in this case the available harvest will be suitable for food all winter and spring.

Potato storage locations

For this, the vegetable will need to allocate a dark room. The cellar or cellar that does not freeze is best. It is worth remembering that you can not store potatoes in the light. In this case, in his tubers begins to develop harmful to humans substance - solanine.

At what temperature should I store potatoes? The most favorable for her range is in the range of two to three degrees. In the event that in the basement or in the cellar is cooler, the vegetable will acquire a sweetish unpleasant taste. Before storing the tubers must be dried. To do this, it is sufficient to hold them for several hours in the open air.

Potatoes are well kept in the bins. Use can and boxes, in which previously make holes for ventilation. In the granaries the tubers are covered with a layer that does not exceed one and a half meters in height. If boxes are used to store vegetables , they are placed on a stand, the height of which is fifteen to twenty centimeters. You should leave a small distance to the wall.

Potatoes can simply be sprinkled on one layer of straw, covering it with another. Tubers that have a defect are recommended to be postponed and used in the first place.

When the top layer of potatoes freezes, rot and various diseases develop in it. Such damage should be avoided by covering the vegetable with empty sacks or boxes. If between the tubers left for the winter, put two or three apples, then they will not start germs.

Part of the harvest, as a rule, is intended for consumption at the very end of winter or in spring. This potato is best kept in the pit. It is torn out in autumn in a dense dry ground. The depth of such a hole can be from 0.6 to 1.5 meters. At the bottom of this storehouse are laid boards. In addition, the pit is equipped with an air duct. It can be made from a conventional plastic pipe. On the top layer of the potatoes are laid boards, they are covered with a one-and-a-half meter layer of the earth and cover with straw.

Preparing for storage

Whether the potatoes are good depends largely on the state of the tubers. That is why before placing the vegetable in the vault it will need to be carefully sorted. Damaged tubers will not be able to lie for a long time, therefore, during the harvesting period, they should be excavated with wide-pitch forks. In addition, the collected vegetables should be moved in boxes or in baskets with thick walls. Compliance with these simple rules will avoid mechanical damage to the tubers.

Before storing the vegetable, do not wash it. The tubers need only be dried.

Accommodation in the cellar or in the underground

Where to store potatoes in winter? Is there an underground or cellar in the house? They will become ideal premises for the placement of crops. Before laying the potatoes, they must be carefully dried, cleaned of debris and whitened with lime milk. To effectively remove excess moisture, check whether the vent or exhaust pipe is working.

How to store potatoes in the winter in a cellar? The pledged vegetables will be able to be fresh for a long time if there is no high temperature and great dampness in the room. To create the necessary conditions, the cellar or the underground should be ventilated in a timely manner. This can be done through a chimney or a vent. In the cold winter period it will also be necessary to ensure that the vegetables do not freeze. For this, the room is surrounded from the outside with sawdust, leaves or peat.

Root storage in the apartment

How to dispose of the crops to those townspeople who do not have their own cellar? After all, for them storing potatoes at home is a real problem. Bags with harvested crops, delivered to the apartment, are shoved in closets and pantries, and sometimes just under the bed. Often, the tubers are carried to a loggia or balcony.

However, at what temperature can potatoes be stored in such conditions? Obviously, it will be far from ideal.

How to store potatoes in an apartment? Of course, it is best to place it on a loggia or balcony. However, even if they are glazed, the temperature can drop below zero even on cold days. In that case, how to store potatoes on a balcony or loggia? This can be done only by insulating the tubers. The easiest way is to wrap bags of tubers with an unnecessary cotton blanket. In order for potatoes to be stored normally, it is important that they have access to air.

Special boxes

How to store potatoes in an apartment, if there is not a suitable place for a vegetable besides the balcony, and the variant with an old blanket does not suit you? In this case, you need to apply a different method. For this it is recommended to make a warmed box for storage of potatoes. It will be able to keep the harvest even at the greatest frost.

The box for storage of potatoes has such a design that helps maintain in its internal volume of positive temperature, as well as air circulation. What should be its size, the owners decide. One has only to bear in mind that a container having a volume of one cubic meter can hold about three hundred and fifty kilograms of tubers.

Drawer manufacturing

For proper storage of potatoes, first of all, you need to create the necessary temperature conditions. For this, the bottom, walls, and also the lid of the box are important to make double. The resulting airspace must be filled with sheet foam or wood chips. Simply put, you will need to make two boxes of different sizes. The smaller is put inside more. The air space between their walls should not be less than ten centimeters wide.

A thick plywood is suitable for manufacturing the case. Use can be lining or piling boards. The box outside must be painted or lined with plastic sheets or linoleum, which does not have a base. This will increase the moisture resistance of the structure.

In order that even in the coldest days the potatoes on the balcony do not freeze, on the inner walls of the box some craftsmen mount one or two incandescent lamps. Their power is low, only 15 watts.

At what temperature is it best to store potatoes and other vegetables? Of course, with a constant. And in order for this condition to be ensured, it is desirable to provide for the installation of a thermal relay in a circuit of lamps. It should automatically turn the lamps on and off when the temperature fluctuates.

What if there is no thermal relay ? Then a thermometer must be in the box to monitor the condition of the storage conditions. It should be borne in mind that from the light of the lamps potatoes can turn green. In order to avoid this, the top layer of tubers should be covered with a cloth of dark color. You can also paint the light bulbs with a dark (but not black) varnish.

Voltage to the lamps from the network is supplied using a waterproofed wire. Pass it through the hole available in the window unit. A switch for the entire system is located in the room, at the balcony door. If you make a glazed window in the side wall of the box or release a bundle of light-emitting diodes from it, you can control the burning of the lamps without leaving the apartment.

In order to prevent strong cooling of the potato when the box is opened, it is desirable to provide a second cover in its construction. This small internal detachable device is made of chipboard. In the center of such a cover a small hatch is cut out.

To ensure the preservation of heat, a seal of foam rubber or porous rubber is also required. It is glued between the lid and the body. But the back gap with the loops will need to be sealed from the outside. To do this, you need a piece of felt or dermatine.

Providing air circulation

How to properly store potatoes in a box made for this purpose? It is important that the tubers do not rot, and also do not freeze in the lower corners. This will prevent the circulation of warm air, which must be provided inside the box. A wooden grate 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 vent holes are located at the level of the grate. In this case, they are not filled with tubers.

Anyone who uses this way of storing potatoes in an apartment in the winter, says that the root does not freeze even at temperatures reaching -15 degrees.

Using the drawer in the apartment

Storage of potatoes in winter can be done in the kitchen. In this case, you need a box whose construction is similar to the one described above. The only difference is that the kitchen version should ensure the safety of the tubers, not with heating the internal space, but with its cooling. This can be done by natural or forced influx of cold air from the street. The thermal insulation layer of the box with this storage option is designed to prevent heat exchange between the structure and the living room.

Forced ventilation can be provided using a supply air fan. It should have a small capacity and be installed in a sealed enclosure. The material for the duct can in this case be a plastic or metal tube. Suitable and a piece of gas or rubber hose. Such an air duct is withdrawn from the space between the grate and the bottom outward, passing it through the opening of the window unit.

Temperature storage conditions

As a rule, we do not even think about the fact that the tubers lying in our apartment or in the cellar are nothing more than living organisms. During storage, they can dry up, because during "breathing" moisture evaporates. At the same time, starch is consumed, which turns into sugar, and the latter, in turn, releases water and carbon dioxide. The intake of oxygen into the vegetable and the release of the formed elements from it occurs through the lenticles (small holes in the skin).

It is worth remembering that the higher the temperature at which potatoes are stored, the more intensive the process of "breathing". Therefore, tubers in the heat quickly become flabby.

At what temperature is the best potato stored? It should be between two and three degrees. The optimum humidity is 85-90%.

Negatively affects the tubers low temperature. At zero, the process of converting starch into sugar begins. That's why dishes made from potatoes become tasteless, sugary and sweet.

If the temperature drops below minus one degree, the vegetable freezes. At plus four and above, the tubers begin to produce sprouts that contribute to the accumulation of solanine.

Seed potatoes

Store tubers not only for cooking. In spring, a certain portion of the crop will be used for planting. By this time on the tubers should be small sprouts. This will significantly shorten the time until seedling emerges on the bed. For the appearance of shoots, the planting material is preheated.

Wet and light ways of germination are also used. During this process, the optimum room temperature should be + 14-18 degrees.