Storage crops at house temperature

General Discussions
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What do you grow that can be stored at house temperature? I know many of you can hold or grow various things through the winter outdoors, or have a root cellar or extra freezer space. For those who don’t – or who have overrun their storage space – what do you grow that can hang out in the house as you eat it?

I’ve had success with squash and garlic particularly, and to some extent tomatoes and tomatillos. Squash can sit on a shelf for a very long time, as can garlic. Tomatoes I can sometimes get two months out of if I pick them and store them carefully on the shelf, tomatillos seem to last two and a half months in a bowl on the counter. My grain corn, dry favas, and grains do great as long as they are thoroughly dried before storage.

I have had the opposite of success with potatoes. I can grow a ton of them, but there’s just nowhere to store them where they don’t sprout or turn green, I just don’t have somewhere that’s cool enough (I store my seed potatoes right on the windowsill where they can go green all they like, and that limits the sprouting too). I suspect carrots would be similarly difficult, though I can pickle those if I ever get a big enough crop.

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We don’t have a root cellar or a lot of space, so this storage method is of much interest to me and dictates to a large degree the things I grow. We do have a spare room where I block of the heating and all the dry things of course do fine. Corn, various beans, cowpeas, sun-dried tomatoes and so on. Garlic and onions do fairly well although I select those to mostly just be harvested from the ground all season, but we often dry a lot of them as well as peppers, forget potatoes other than maybe a months’ worth.

As far as anything that that we can store like that and that seems like eating something fresh I limited to squash, and the big one, sweet potatoes. Both of those can keep for a full year, maybe longer on the sweet potatoes.

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Can you grow jicama where you are? Jicama and sweet potatoes are the two things I buy from the store that can sit on my counter for months. Sadly neither of them actually grows here.

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This is something I’m thinking about. I’m on property but extremely limited budget and help.

Probably the simplest… second hand fridge, adjust temperature, use as a root cellar.

Maybe the cheapest… Dig and build root cellar by hand, very pioneer style. Hand dig. Build with whatever I can gather up second hand or buy cheaply.

Ideal… Build a nice root cellar.

I did some canning last year. Tomato sauce mostly. This year I’d like to do alot more. Jars and lids aren’t inexpensive though… I’m looking at building a big solar dehydrator. Can pack alot more dried and powdered into the same amount of jars. I’m going to start trying out some fermentation.

We have a disused room here as well that stays cool with the door closed. I’m working on ideas for cheap/free shelves to store squash/pumpkins in there.

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@Greenstorm I grow sweet potatoes in similar climate to yours and know a person that has grown them close to me for over a decade with good results. Just need clear plastic row cover and plastic tunnel with cloth to get started early. Around equinox or when weather warms up remove the plastic tunnel and leave cloth for rest of the season. This way I can plant them 10-15 days before I otherwise could. I also use slips that I have rooted in small pots for 3-4 weeks to get real headstart. Last year I also had several varieties more better suited for cooler climate and trialled without plastic tunnel with just black plastic cover with cloth. They grew nicely, but unfortunately last year was too dry and tuberisation was a bit uneven. So no room for delays, but it’s possible with some trial and error. For next year I will have 15-20 varieties (mostly new to me) for trialling and hopefully get some sort of breeding going on. There is some bigger breeding programs going on in Ireland with just slips planted to bare ground with no cover. Not sure what the situation with those are at the moment, but this breeder said when he started early 2000s they couldn’t get good harvests even with greenhouse so there has been some massive developement to even trial outdoors in bare ground. Jicama I tried first time last year and can’t say it did as well as sweet potatoes. Maybe would need better seed source or some work in slighly warmer climates/greenhouse to bridge the gap.

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I also don’t have a basement or root cellar - the water table is much too high here in the winter. I don’t have much to add to the conversation other than I’ve considered trying a root clamp. The instructions for which I found here. John Seymour also gave instructions for root clamps in his books.

My climate here in western Oregon has mild, damp winters, much like the UK. So with these root clamps historically used there (and in other mild areas in Europe) then it stands to reason that they would work for me.

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My granddad used clamps for potatoes and apples, and I think cabbage. Maybe other stuff too, it was sixty years ago, so I don’t remember exactly. I do remember he had more than one and when one was opened, everything in it was removed. They looked basically the same as picture in the link you posted.

I use a similar set up for overwintering dahlia roots, gardenia plants and sometimes a few potatoes. I use one of my cold frames. Pile of leaves on the bottom to raise it a bit above ground level, put in the stuff, another pile of leaves on top and close the lid. More leaves piled all around the outside to make sure its sealed against air leakage.

I have had issues with it getting too warm. I should look into modifying this to work better, I could store a lot more stuff. I would think it would work well in zone 8 but even more caution about it getting too warm might be in order.

For dahlia roots I have also used large tubs that cattle feed come in. Same principle, bury the roots (above ground level) in leaves. Turn the tub upside down on top and bury it in leaves. I leave an air space between the top of the inside pile and the inside top of the tub, have never lost a root like that.

Advantage of the cold frame or tub over my granddad’s is they are easier to make and easier to open so if using for food it might be easier to just take out want you need and close it back up.

I definitely need to modify and experiment with this some more!

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It looks like folks have lots to share about other storage methods for crops, and that’s definitely a valuable set of information. Where I am it freezes roughly 3’ deep, with another 3’ of snow, so in-ground unpowered situations aren’t tenable, and I know some folks have very limited outdoor space-- that’s why I was hoping folks would have suggestions of crops that can be stored in a house.

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I am very surprised to hear that sweet potatoes can grow in a climate like this. I don’t grow in tunnels; I would be interested if there was something more to read on that Irish work, or if you get going on your end and have extra seed if it ever becomes an abundant resource. I know there was someone working on them in the sandier soils over in the maritimes (other side of Canada from me) but I think she got pulled off them.

I definitely like the taste of jicama better than sweet potatoes, but that seems to be even a longer shot.

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Squashes store great for me in a shelf in my bedroom. Apples seem to do well, too. Sweet potatoes are looking like they probably will, too.

Not a crop, but perhaps interesting anyway:

Any hard cheese that is vacuum sealed can be stored on a shelf, and it will not spoil, and it will age. Cheese wax was traditionally used for this purpose, but that’s too much expense and bother for me. I just buy cheese from the grocery store that’s vacuum sealed in plastic (Tillamook is, for instance), and stick it on a shelf for as long as I want. After 12 months, mild cheddar will be super sharp cheddar, and incredibly delicious.

Useful tip: If you do this, you will see white grains on top, and liquid all around it. Don’t worry about those. It’s not spoiled, and those taste just as good as the cheese. In fact, the liquid has even more sharp flavor than the cheese. Put it in a cheese sauce or something. It’s delicious. As for the tiny white balls, they’re whey. If you like that little bit of crunchiness at the top, it’s fun to eat cold. If you don’t, melt the cheese, and they’ll disappear into it.

I’ve eaten cheddar cheese that I stored on the shelf five years ago. It was too sharp even for me, but here’s the secret to cheese that is too sharp: melt it and mix it with cheese that is too mild! Mild cheddar + sharp cheddar = moderate cheddar.

I’ve been doing that for about ten years, and I find that it makes for very valuable long-term food storage of protein. If I had cows and could produce my own milk and knew how to make my own cheese, I’d probably invest in cheese wax (which can be reused) so that I could do it from scratch at home.

If you want to experiment with cheese wax, I’ve heard you can save and reuse cheese wax from grocery store cheeses, such as Babybel. I haven’t yet tried it. It sounded too much bother for me, because vacuum-sealed-in-plastic mild cheddar is cheap to buy and easy to find, and I don’t like cooking.

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@Greenstorm It’s definetely possible, although many have completely failed also. Timing and conditions need to be good enough to have them grow fast enough. They seem to demand quite a lot of water, atleast to grow fast. 2 years ago I would have had the first good harvest, but they got completely decimated by voles right at the end. This year was way too dry and many had started to form tubers too far away which is ofcourse slower and thus wasn’t enough time to have good tubers. Some of the new varieties I tried clearly showed good healthy growth early in the season while store bought variety had it’s leaves blue from cold. That was most of june when days were around +20 and nights around +10. Ofcourse they liked when it got hotter, but didn’t see much difference when it got to milder temps again. Varieties you could look for are “witte van de ecohoeve”, “T65” and “erato white”. There are also other erato varieties that should be good for cooler climates, but I have no experience of them. Not sure how well available they are in Canada, but atleast T65 can be found in US so I would expect it to be available in Canada too. About Irish breeding I dont have more than just one update in facebook sweet potato growers group 2 years ago where he had big field of possible lines planted in bare ground, but no updates. Would expect it still to take 3-10years before there is anything public depending how far that work was. But there are also some varieties that have been released recently that add up to the varieties that are better suited for northern climates. One that I have for this year is called “scandinavian purple” that is very interesting based on it’s name. My own work still waiting to get started. Last year didn’t have luck with getting seeds. Only 3 varieties flowered at all and those were the ones that were least cold hardy. Not sure why they didn’t get pollunated, but might be because there weren’t the right varieties to pollunate each other. That’s why this year I have tried to get as many varieties as I can get and also try inducing flowering by growing in pots. Hopefully get some start on seed production to build on.

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Looks like Cultivariable is carrying on the Nova Scotia sweet potato line, but it sounds like it’s slow going.

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In Mediterranean countries winter storage tomatoes are a thing. usually thick skinned, and small, they are picked at the end of the season and strung together in bunches. The last time I tried they lasted 4-5 months I think. Search for pomodorino inverno for italian varieties, ramallet tomatoes for the spanish ones. Yotam Ottolenghi mentioned similar varieties in Sardinia in one of his episodes on the islands of the Mediterranean. The most mentioned one is Piennolo del Vesuvio grown around Naples, but there are equivalent ones from Puglia, and probably other places as well.
They need to be inspected regularly, and the flavour develops slightly funky notes, they are much prized in Naples where they are sold at a huge premium to normal tomatoes.

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Yes, it’s a long process with lot of trialling to make sure that there are traits that are deemed necessary. Atleast commercial cultivation has many demands that might not be as necessary for private use. Did find some stories about commercial sweet potato cultivation in Nova Scotia, but ofcourse they have month longer and warmer season. But commercial growing is generally done with slips and using prerooted transplants or slips can take several weeks off and using cloth gives little extra heat. Atleast I suspect commercial growers in Nova Scotia only use black plastic. That’s how they grow in central europe in similar climates. I hope I could get something that could be grown with as little help, but there is still long way to go. Might make small trial next year with just black blastic to see how much difference that makes and also have an idea how much I can push the conditions when I get seeds.

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Also on one youtube channel they have grown T65 somewhere in southern UK in bare ground. I think they had slips little rooted, but quite little transplants and they had good sized sweet potatoes. They also had some other varieties most of which failed even in greenhouse. Ofcourse that’s still longer season although not as much warmer. Unless those years were much warmer than average. But still there is a way even in cooler climate. I do recommend having them well watered as it is a tropical plant.

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Seminole pumpkin has kept on a shelf for up to two years. Sweet potatoes I simply leave in the ground to dig as needed. Those I miss get bigger for next season. My inside temperatures range from single digits to triple digits. Not a good environment for keeping sane, much less anything else.

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You live in zone 8b? Hmmmm! I live in zone 7b, and I’ve been wondering if I could overwinter my sweet potatoes outside. It may be too cold. But if you can do it in 8b, maybe I can do it in 7b with water bottles and mulch on top to keep in some warmth!

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How do you get the sweet potatoes to store for a year?

I started just to keep mine in the ground year round (we have mild winters, barely any frost) and harvest when I need, as I find they don’t last more than 3 months inside the house.

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I don’t really do much of anything, they just keep that long on their own. After harvest in September or October I keep them as warm as I can for a couple of weeks to cure. After that I take them to the unheated but still above 50 F spare bedroom. I think they might like it a bit warmer, but they seem to do fine stored there.

What happens to yours after three months? Do they rot, dry out, start sprouting? The most problem I have ever had, although not terribly much is some start sprouting but since I’ve been breeding them from seed, I just cull those that do that from the next year’s planting. I’ve also had them but again not often, to start drying out, but that mostly happens to very small ones.

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They mostly dry out or go soft and spongy, very few mold or rot but only if they have been damaged.
The ones that did survive on the shelf past the 3 months sprout.
Now that I think about it, it is the smaller ones that dry out fastest, so maybe it’s just a matter of storing the very large ones inside and keeping the smaller ones in the ground.
I stored them in my pumpkin rack in the living room, that might be on the dry side due to heating in winter.
I normally harvest in december and havent quite found a way to cure them warmer than just placing then on the bottom shelf of the rack. So maybe the problem is a lack of curing too.
This year I have a lot in the field from last year, I’m curious to see if the tubers will simply grow bigger and spread out to produce more tubers without me having to do anything. Now that would be amazing!