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Storing the Harvest

Posted at 10:31 AM on October 16, 2008 by Autumn Long (1 Comments)

The temperature on Saturday night is predicted to fall below freezing for the first time this season. This means we need to bring our harvest safely indoors. We'll pick off whatever tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and squash remain in the garden, and I'll move the boxes of produce that have been sitting on my porch into the cellar. We'll also need to box up and store away the garlic, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

After harvesting the garlic and onions each summer, we hang them in the barn to dry. Likewise, after digging the potatoes and sweet potatoes, we lay them out on the floor of the hayloft to allow their skins to dry out. This drying process doesn't take long, but more often than not, the produce remains in the barn until the threat of a freeze prompts us into action. Predictably, that trend has continued this year. I did manage to clean and sort the onions last weekend, but the garlic, potatoes, and sweet potatoes remain in the barn. We'll need to gather them up and find a winter home for them before the freeze arrives. Our cellar is too damp to store root vegetables for a long period of time: I suspect our closet floor is a better (relatively cool yet dry) environment for long-term produce storage this winter.

As little more than a wild guess, I would estimate that we harvested between 100 and 150 pounds of potatoes this year. While I'm at it, I'll go ahead and estimate a 40-pound sweet potato harvest as well. Although these estimates might be wildly inaccurate, I can say with confidence that it was a good year for root vegetables!

Comments (1)

I love sweet potatoes.
My tomatoes did not make it this year.

Paulette

Posted by P. Thompson | October 20, 2008 6:45 PM