{"id":15748,"date":"2024-08-31T11:49:18","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T09:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/harvesting-and-storing-potatoes\/"},"modified":"2024-08-31T11:49:45","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T09:49:45","slug":"harvesting-and-storing-potatoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/harvesting-and-storing-potatoes\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvesting and storing potatoes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our potato plots were overgrown with grass, following a very wet summer until mid-July this year.\nSo we harvested them early, around July 20, for fear of rotting. <\/p>\n\n

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The noeophytes made the potato vines disappear under a thick carpet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The potato plants still visible are tiny and dry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But underneath there are quite a few tubers, not very large but in good condition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Not an extraordinary yield, 4 or 5 potatoes per plant.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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In fact, harvesting consists of pulling up the grass and just scraping the surface. (The barrel in the middle hides an old well).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And little by little, the coffers are filling up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Within a few hours, the plot is turned over.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then cover with all the grass removed to prevent the soil from drying out too much.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Now it’s a question of how to store and preserve them.\nYou don’t want them to rot, but the main problem with potatoes is to prevent them from sprouting. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Chlorpropham is now banned in Switzerland and Europe.\nThis gray powder blocks the germination of potatoes. It was used on all the potatoes we ate for decades, and was in fact carcinogenic, among other things. The withdrawal of this product has created major problems for storage, and industrial agriculture has had to find other solutions to prevent potatoes from sprouting. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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One of these new, more natural techniques for blocking germination is spraying with mint essence.There’s a lot of mint growing in a nearby field.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We’re going to collect a few crates.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The idea is to keep the potatoes dark and dry, with a vegetable base and covered with charcoal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But first you have to sort the potatoes, clean them from the earth and remove any that are damaged or a little green.\nDon’t hesitate to be demanding, leaving only tubers in good condition. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We’ll prepare a bed of mint at the bottom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then spread out the potatoes, taking care not to overcrowd them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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On top of the charcoal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We don’t really cover the potatoes, the charcoal is there to absorb any moisture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It takes a lot of crates to distribute the entire harvest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A variation: Charcoal underneath, mint on top.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The potato and charcoal crates are stored high up, in a dry, dark cellar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And so it goes on until we’ve stored everything.There are enough to get us through to next summer, but it all depends on whether they start sprouting at the end of winter or not.\nWe’ll see how long they last, and whether they’re scented with mint or charcoal. <\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our potato plots were overgrown with grass, following a very wet summer until mid-July this year. So we harvested them early, around July 20, for fear of rotting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3213,"featured_media":15710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}