Howdy folks! I usually don’t pop up here during the winter (and our winter is around until mid May…) but I have a quick question; the supermarket has Alaska fingerling potatoes and I would like to stash some for spring planting (think May~June). So… Bag them with dirt, burry in the snow? Our snow will stick around for the rest of the season until May, and I can bury them deep enough that they should be safe from the sub zero temperatures.
Is there a better method to keep them good for the next 4 months or so?
a cool, dry spot in the cellar works good. dad used to put them right on the concrete in a corner and they kept all winter. i keep mine in a unheated spare room in our trailer as i dont have a cellar. they dont last as long though. never tried keeping under the snow. if kept dry like blueberry said i guess it’s possible.
The dirt is to keep them from going beyond dry and into dehydrating.
I imagine I’ll find them for sale in the spring but waste not/want not and all that; I’ll see if I can preserve these. They are pretty fantastic; buttery, creamy but firm, the skin is thin enough that you don’t even have to peel them. For stews and soups they are the perfect size where you just cut them in rounds like a carrot. I think they are also known as Magic Myrna.
Magic Molly is Alaska’s own, and now the only purple/blue potato we grow. Great flavor and size, and doesn’t lose its color when baked or boiled.
I have a friend who plants her potatoes in the fall so she can harvest them earlier in the summer. She says she has great success. That is the only kind of burying of potatoes I have heard of. We store our potatoes in a back room of the house. It is dry and cooler than the rest of the house in winter.
think it would work better for you than me. 1 less thing to have to plant in the busy spring. there’s a local farmer here that farms potatoes and oats in the summer. then does the same in northern Florida over winter. does well for himself.
