Sunday, February 12, 2017

Winter vegetable storage

Winter is about half done here so I thought I'd report in on how storing the vegetables went so I can do better next winter.  Mostly it's not been good. This is what I tried this year:

Our cement block garage usually stays a bit warmer than the outside so I tried storing 4 pumpkins, a bucket full of potatoes and a crate of onions out there.  The pumpkins froze, the potatoes froze but the onions have done wonderfully so far.  Some have a few wrinkles or tiny soft spots but most are perfect.  They're just heaped in a milk crate.


In the house, I kept potatoes and onions in both the kitchen and basement.  They quickly went soft and sprouted in both places.  We've eaten almost all of the squash but there are three huge drum shaped winter squash in the kitchen that look like they were just picked - absolutely beautiful. They're like 10 lbs each.  I'd really like to cook them but the little guy likes to use them as tiny chairs.  He probably wouldn't miss just one though...

In the garden- wow I thought I had a really good idea with this one.  I had read about burying a covered bucket and storing potatoes that way.  You pack them in some dirt, lid the bucket tightly, bury it and then cover it with a bale of straw.  So I did.  I had really, really high hopes for this method.   Went out today and dug the bucket up, pried the lid off (it was really stuck) and..... It was bad.  Like really, really bad.  Somehow water had gotten in the bucket and the potatoes liquefied. Oh, it was terrible.

I'm not sure where to go from here.  Maybe I'm just expecting too much?

5 comments:

  1. My granparents used to use a clamp for their vegetables. with sand and straw, maybe the bucket made them sweat and the water couldnt run off. They never used buckets they just layered them in the ground, so the rain would be absorbed back into the earth.

    Good post, its something to think about in our garden.

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  2. I think I may give that a try next year, I worry that it wouldn't gibe enough protection in our climate but obviously what I've tried so far hasn't either. :)

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    1. "give" enough protection is what I meant. Ugh! Wish we could edit comments!

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  3. I've built something to help store my veg. Send me an email and I'll send you some pictures!
    I have brought a little temostat that turns on a heater if it gets below freezing in my storage area. apples, garlic, potatoes and shallots are all keeping fine so far. My squash didn't though as I didn't ahev room in the house an dit was too cold in the shed for them. didn't have a great harvest with them anyway!

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  4. To store huge quantity of vegetables to keep them more fresh use cold storage. To know more about cold storage have a look into
    Cold Store in Assam

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