Features of storing potatoes in a garage without a cellar

Potatoes are an integral part of the diet of most people in our country. It is not for nothing that the people call this vegetable "the second bread". Potato gardeners usually do this in large quantities, with a margin until the next harvest. Therefore, the issue of storing potatoes is always relevant.

A garage can be adapted for these needs, but in order for the vegetable to retain its freshness and excellent taste longer, the room must be properly prepared. How to keep potatoes in a cold and warm garage, we will tell you in the article.

Preparing potatoes for storage

To keep the potatoes fresh and appetizing until spring, it is important to properly prepare them for wintering:

1. Dry the tubers outdoors or in a well-ventilated area if it rains on the day of harvest. In this case, avoid direct sunlight on the vegetable.
2. Sort out the crop, remove all "substandard" - damaged specimens.
3. Sort potatoes by size and purpose (seed, potatoes for food).

Ideal tubers set aside for storage should be clean and dry with a whole and firm skin. If there are appendages, they must be removed. If there is damage: cuts, wormholes, rot or mold, green areas, then such specimens are disposed of.

Even if at first glance the wound on the tuber is very small, over time it can become the cause of infection of all potatoes stored nearby.

Reference. The keeping quality of the root crop also depends on the variety. Early and mid-season varieties are stored for no more than 3-6 months. For long-term storage of potatoes in the garage in winter, it is better to choose late varieties.

Storage in a garage without a cellar and with a cellar

The main problem of crop storage is rot. Spoiled vegetables are not only unsuitable for human consumption, but also dangerous in that they infect all stored workpieces with infection, reducing the efforts of the gardener to zero.

The main causes of potato rotting:

• high humidity;
• cold;
• heat.

Humid air is a favorable environment for the development of pathogenic fungi and mold. To avoid this, keep the air humidity no higher than 75-80% and sprinkle the bottom of the storage container or the floor of the room with drainage material - for example, rubble or pebbles.

If the temperature is too low, the crop will freeze starch is converted to sugar and the vegetable has a characteristic sweet taste. If the temperature is higher than the recommended + 2 ° C ... + 4 ° C, the potatoes will sprout and root, which will significantly impair its taste and keeping quality.

Important! Light is contraindicated for potato fruits, because under its influence, solanine is formed in tubers - a substance harmful to the human body.

What is the difference

Garages with a cellar are more preferable because fully recessed storage is optimal for crop storage. This is due to the constancy of the temperature in the cellar, which is practically independent of weather fluctuations and the change of seasons.

In addition, direct sunlight does not enter the cellar, therefore, poisonous solanine is not produced in the tubers. On the other hand, in the absence of a ventilation system in the cellar, the air humidity is often increased.

Not every garage is equipped with a basement, but if space permits, storing potatoes in a garage without a cellar is also possible.But you should think in advance about the possibility of regulating the temperature in the room in order to prevent tubers from freezing in winter in the garage.

How to prepare your garage for storage

Before sending potatoes for storage, you need to process the premises. In addition to the usual cleaning of litter and dirt, it involves the use of lime whitewash:

• 150 g table salt;
• 2 kg of slaked lime;
• 1 kg of copper sulfate;
• 10 liters of water.

A pre-prepared mixture is used to whitewash the walls of the cellar or of the plot allocated for storage of the crop inside the garage.

Reference. Whitewashing will prevent the spread of mold.

The second important point is the ventilation system. It must be cleaned, check the performance of the exhaust system. Before placing potatoes directly, the room must be thoroughly ventilated.

Arrangement of a basement in a garage

Not everyone knows how to properly store potatoes in the basement of the garage. In order for it to be suitable for storing vegetables, it is required to equip it properly:

1. With low soil moisture, walls can be built of bricks, but for high moisture, concrete walls with waterproofing are more suitable.
2. Ideally, the floor should consist of three layers: rubble, bitumen and concrete. This will provide the necessary drainage and air capacity.
3. For disinfection purposes, the walls are covered with lime.
4. To prevent condensation from settling on the ceiling, the upper plane should be tilted towards the hood.
5. Because bright light has a detrimental effect on the keeping quality of potatoes, it is better to give preference to low-voltage lighting.

When equipping a cellar in a garage, you need to know where the groundwater passes - in order to avoid moisture seepage, the bottom of the storage is placed no closer than 2 m from them.

Arrangement of a garage without a basement

If the garage does not have a basement, this is not a reason to be upset. Having correctly organized the space for storing the crop, you can use almost any free room for these purposes:

1. The garage should provide for the possibility of thermoregulation, because severe frosts or, on the contrary, high air temperatures can ruin the harvest. For this, thermometers and heaters are installed.
2. The tubers are covered with breathable material (straw, burlap, etc.). On the one hand, it will protect vegetables from light, on the other hand, it will serve as additional heat and moisture insulation.
3. If possible, the potato trays should be raised above floor level. As a last resort, make a thick backing of straw, newspaper, earth, and insulating material.

Like the cellar, the garage must be cleaned, ventilated and dried before use, and then treated with a disinfectant.

How and what to store

A potato storage tank plays an equally important role as a room. It is better if these are non-deaf wooden boxes that allow air to circulate freely between the rows of tubers.

In unheated garages and on balconies, an excellent option for storing vegetables is thermo boxes with a layer of thermal insulation.

Finally, you can store potatoes in the old-fashioned way - in piles, as well as in bags and nets.

Preparing storage container in the garage

All storage equipment (pallets, boxes, bags and nets) are pre-dried and disinfected.

There are several ways to do this:

• treatment with a solution of potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate);
• "Frying" in the sun;
• processing with a mixture of lime and copper sulfate (100 g per 10 l).

If straw will be used as a covering material or substrate for potatoes, it must also be disinfected. For example, pour over with steam or boiling water, and then dry.

Boxes

This is one of the most convenient and aesthetic ways to organize storage of potatoes.

Firstly, this container allows you to keep separate tubers of different varieties and sizes. Secondly, if necessary, vertical stacking of boxes is possible, which significantly saves space.

The box is made of wood, with a distance between the slats of 2-4 cm.

For better ventilation, the boxes are placed at a distance of at least 30 cm from the wall and 20 cm from the floor, not too tightly to each other (about 10 cm).

Reference. In addition to wooden ones, manufacturers offer perforated plastic containers. You need to treat them carefully and check that the air holes are not only on the container lid, but also throughout its entire area.

Burt

This is the most common and economical storage option as it is simple to execute and does not require the purchase of special equipment.

A burt is a long mound of potatoes. To prevent a collapse, the rows are fenced with boards, and for insulation they are covered with a layer of straw (60 cm), earth (50-70 cm) and heat-insulating material. For ventilation, a vertical pipe is installed in the center of the embankment. As drainage, grooves are dug around the shoulder.

This method is good as temporary storage in naturally ventilated rooms. It is not suitable for longer storage, because:

• the occupied area is too large,
• difficult to regulate the temperature in the center of the potato mound,
• with insufficient ventilation, rotting, infection with a fungus and other infections is possible;
• the design is inconvenient for use: it is difficult to get the potatoes and sort them out in order to remove the formed processes.

When creating a pile, one must remember that the height of the embankment should not exceed 1 m, otherwise the roots will be poorly ventilated and will soon rot.

Thermo box

Thermo boxes, or ovens, are equipped in such a way that, having their own ventilation, they maintain a positive temperature inside, i.e. protect the crop from external influences.

Typically, an oven is made as a metal box with an insulated casing. It also has a pallet and legs. There is a built-in thermostat inside that maintains constant air circulation within the range of + 2 ° C ... + 7 ° C.

Disadvantages of the method:

• limited volume (the largest industrial ovens are made with a volume of 360 liters);
• high cost (from 6.5 to 11.5 thousand rubles);
• connection to the power supply in the cold season - therefore, free sockets are required and energy consumption increases.

You can do something similar to a heating cabinet yourself: place two wooden boxes of different sizes inside each other, laying an insulating layer between them. Craftsmen lay out the bottom of a smaller box with a film for a warm floor and synchronize it with a thermostat on the outside of the structure.

Reference. Instead of an oven, you can use your old refrigerator. It does not even need to be connected to the power supply. the case itself is already thermally insulated.

Nets or bags

Nets and bags as a way of storing potatoes do not lose their relevance, because it's cheap and convenient.

To avoid contact with moisture and cold floors, nets and bags are stacked on pallets and insulated on top with straw or hay.

Natural burlap and mesh with large holes do not impede the natural and constant circulation of fresh air between the tubers, which is important for the prevention of various diseases. In addition, the bags can be conveniently moved if necessary.

Cellar

It is not worth storing potatoes in bulk in the cellar - the vegetable may suffocate due to insufficient ventilation. Therefore, inside the basement for potatoes, special containers are organized - bins. It can also be wooden boxes with gaps between the slats.

When placing the boxes, take into account that air must circulate freely between the containers, therefore:

• the maximum height should not exceed 60 cm to the ceiling of the cellar;
• above the floor, the boxes are raised by 15-20 cm;
• move 30 cm away from the wall;
• leave 10 cm between the boxes.

Alternative storage methods

In addition to the garage, for storing potatoes, you can adapt a plot in the garden, a balcony or a loggia in a city apartment.

Our grandparents used special pits to preserve the harvest. You can arrange it now on your personal plot. For this:

• dig a hole at least 1.5 m deep;
• the bottom and walls are lined with wooden boards, straw is laid on top;
• the tubers are covered with a layer of about 1 m (50 cm should remain to the edge);
• potatoes are covered with straw, boards, then covered with earth.

If it is inconvenient to go to the dacha for another batch of potatoes, you can store it right on your balcony. A thermobox is ideal for this purpose - purchased or homemade. If the box is made independently, it is insulated with foam, cardboard, rags or sawdust, and unnecessary warm things are placed on top of the vegetables. They must be clean and natural so that the tubers can breathe.

On the insulated loggia, it is enough to install suitable sized boxes made of wood or plastic and periodically sort the potatoes for rotten specimens to remove sprouts.

Tips & Tricks

Experienced summer residents share useful information on Internet forums - we will share with you some of the nuances:

1. Elevated temperatures are no less harmful when storing potatoes than frosts. The heat, coupled with dry air, causes dried and flabby vegetables.
2. Storing different vegetables in the same tray is not a good idea. But the proximity of beets and potatoes will bring a positive result, because beets will absorb excess moisture, improving the keeping quality of potato tubers.

Read also:

The best recipes on how to pickle cucumbers in a plastic bucket for the winter and recommendations for storing such blanks.

Carrot hybrid for long-term storage Canada f1.

Conclusion

Knowing the simple storage rules, you can enjoy dishes from potatoes grown with your own hands all winter and spring and save seed material for the next summer season without loss. A rich and ripe harvest!