Permaculture potatoes?

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#1

Prelude

Potatoes can be grown in a relatively closed-loop without indistrial inputs or imports.

Potatoes grow well in Alaska. We grew them in plain ole silt that is abundant in this glacial sediment valley, and is almost devoid of organic matter. This was done with very little work and with pretty sketchy seed potatoes that were rather black and moldy.

However the hard freezes (-40° for at least a few days most winters, sometimes colder) make it difficult to get much through the winter without freezing solid at least once. It is common to have periods of above freezing days and below freezing nights for weeks.

This leads to a couple problems

  1. Potatoes stored for eating are in various stages of frozenness and mushiness and wateriness at various times. Many do not last very long.
  2. Seed potatoes don’t seem to remain viable without fancier climate control than log cabins and woodstoves and being gone for random weeks at a time affords.

The questions

Which potato varieties are vest suited to multiple freeze and thaw cycles? In my limited experience, red potatoes from the grocery store seem to have lower water content, and seem to last longer than russets and yellow/golden fleshed varieties. But surely there are DIY potato varieties which are worth considering.

Are there any reasonable options or strategies for avoiding importing seed potatoes by keeping a fair number through the hard freeze winters? Are there tricks or varieties to which allow them to handle freezing and remaining viable?

Pot of ugly potatoes I’m cooking tonight which inspired the post.

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They’ll be good despite initial appearances.

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#2

Do you air dry them or cure them before storage. I’ve heard that helps to reduce to water amount. If you have access to it straw can help for a while if stores in the straw.

#3

Freezing will destroy the viability of seed potatoes. You would need to store any root veg below the frost line… probably 3 to 5’ deep there. Maybe in warm weather, you could research and see if if would work to install a root cellar that’s sheltered somehow so to be accessible, like under your floor boards? … a defunct small chest freezer or a big sturdy cooler? It doesn’t sound like you’re in a position to rely on such an experiment, but it could work?
I would think True potato seed, “TPS” would survive freezing temps there… You can buy heirloom potato seeds. Saving the pods that form on hybrid potato plants, IF you can get them along that far… will generally produce inferior plants.

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#4

There’s Alaska seed savers on the seed savers exchange that might know. I was going to join to check out what was available.

#5

The variety I like best is called…my neighbours potatoes …
The closest one might be 20km away…but the more years they grow in your local climate the better they will perform…and last…
For the first few years we stored potatoes in a box under the bed…cabin and Woodstock only…but at -40 I don’t really go away far… :slight_smile:
Then we built a root cellar. Under a cabin addition …8feet down…which keeps potatoes till next year’s harvest…at -35 we heat the cellar with 2candles for a few hours for a few days…off grid style…
Seed potatoes are double insulated…you only need a few anyway…and some years a neighbour just might share theirs…
Agnes. Yukon

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#6

i have no experience with the climate you all live in, and only very little experience with potatoes. we do grow sweet potatoes here, which are similar in some aspects. but again, the main issue i lack drawing experience from is the long-term frigid climate there.

anyway, the first thought that came to mind was to store them in a pile of sand and straw (these may actually not be readily available to you!) beneath an active compost pile. however, i have no idea how a compost pile in that cold climate would function compared to the moderate temperate climate i live in. the sand and straw could help to keep them dry and insulated (from the cold, and the heat of the compost pile if it were to get really hot). perhaps dry sand first, then straw, then a heavy pile of composting debris? it might also be a good idea to dig down 2 or 3 feet and do this in a trench. and pee on it!

i have no experience doing this - these are simply some initial thoughts intended to spin other ideas from that might be more practical/accessible for the region and its resources…

#7

Not sure TPS would work because it looks like people transplant starts. http://garden.lofthouse.com/botanical-potato-seed.phtml

#8

our neighbor upriver of mcgrath grows enough potatoes for the whole year + seed potatoes. they dug a root cellar that was around 6-8’ deep (unfortunately, it was a bit too close to the lake’s edge, and when the waterline comes up due to beavers or heavier rain, it gets a bit of water in it).

they lined the sides of the cellar with rigid foam insulation, and put an insulated wooden frame/box top up above at ground level. they have a little pulley system to lift totes/trash cans up out of the cellar. they stored potatoes in a trash can that had a bunch of holes drilled into it, and carrots in plastic totes with sawdust (a product of the swing mill used for making lumber on the property). once the totes/cans of veggies were down in there, they were covered with rigid foam and then bags of sawdust to further insulate from outside temps before the insulated lid was put back on up at ground level.

winters there get down to -60, and the middle 2-3 months of winter hover around -20 to -40 regularly. the year that we were there, they lost some veggies to rot, but that wasn’t so much due to the cold as it was because we’d had the rainiest summer in 20+ years, and the veggies weren’t quite dry enough when they went in, and so the moisture traveled into the sawdust, froze & thawed, and ruined some of the harvest.

those potatoes were delicious. they grew both red & yellow type potatoes successfully. they grew for a few years in the existing soil, and then had to start Making soil by harvesting peat from the riverside and mixing it with composted fish carcasses, dried leaves (birch & cottonwood mainly), and some moss. they kept an active compost pile, but it takes Much longer to break down in that climate than in the lower 48.

hope this info is helpful :slight_smile: @andrew, i know you’re sometimes in touch with our neighbors from up there, so of course you can get in touch with him for more details. his greenhouse also does VERY well taking advantage of the fast-growing sunlight in spring and fall. it turns into a jungle in there by late june, with lots of tomatoes, squash, herbs, etc. he does have to heat the greenhouse (via rocket stove) once he moves starts out of the cabin, to make sure it stays above freezing. gardening there takes a Lot of work, but if you’re interested in home grown veggies, it’s definitely doable. they save seed (& sometimes order new seed), make their own soil & compost, and pump water up from the lake (since normally that area only gets 12-16" rain a year). potatoes are definitely their easiest crop. onions, too, actually.

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#9

Maybe you could do transplants in that big front window in the new cabin?

#10

Personally, I’m not interested in getting into an indoor starts and greenhouses and transplants situation. If there’s a low-input, high-output way of doing it, I’m game.

@jenniferocious, when did those seed potatoes go in the ground? The end of June?

We spent something like a total of two hours planting and harvesting. If it’s a complicated deal, I’d rather get better at Indian/Eskimo potato and eat more meat and fish.

Figuring out a deep hole to toss a sack o potatoes in and come back in the Spring to cut them up and shove them in silt is something I’d consider.

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#11

Also, all of this information is good and helpful and appreciated. I sometimes ask questions because I know others are interested in these projects, even if some of it is slightly outside my particular aesthetics.

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#12

I have found the purple fingerling types withstand cold well, but generally potatoes aren’t able to take actually freezing.

#13

If you have a spot that stays above freezing in a structure you could just stick a crate of potatoes there.

#14

For eating, I’ve had success with some stuff that would ordinarily be considered inedible. A week or two ago I was cutting them in half after thawing and squeezing water out. They were like water balloons to the point that water would spurt out when the peel was punctured. The process was kind of like hand-squeezed orange juice.

These potatoes had been in a plastic sack with very little drainage, and were entombed in a frozen black liquid after freezing and thawing repeatedly for a couple months. Somehow, I was still able to get caramelization on them, and they came out great.

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#15

There are basically no spaces above ground which don’t freeze at some point as soon as you leave for a day or two.

For potatoes stored with food, neighbors do the opposite. They use freezers with bad compressors but good insulation. The idea is to get them to freeze, and stay frozen. That way if you have to leave for a couple days, the provability of them staying below freezing is almost 100%, whereas staying above freezing in that time is almost 0%.

#16

Seed potatoes would definitely need to be buried then. If they are crated with peat/moss/something like that to keep them from touching and buried in ground that doesn’t freeze they should mostly/usually be ok.

#17

Would a root cellar be out of the question? I think that’s about the best option. Pack the vegetables in straw or sawdust and keep a few hot stones from the stoves, changing every couple of days and it might work. Not an expert though.

#18

You are in a tricky climate for doing special potato magic. While seed potatoes can remain somewhat viable after partial freezes, deep Alaskan freezes will definitely kill them. I’d say look into growing from TPS (true botanical seed) but that would require a greenhouse for making early starts and would also require transplanting, not to mention potentially years of breeding and selection work. I imagine that’s not what you’re going for, although I’d bet if you networked with the right Alaskan farmers you might find someone whose already done some of that work and then piggyback off their progress or just use whatever latest and greatest seed potatoes they’ve hit upon.

I will point out however that Jerusalem artichokes will resprout after being completely frozen, as well as being easy to grow from true seed (which I could offer) should you want to go that route too. I would definitely go with the sunchokes. Find the variety “day neutral”… That’s what you’ll want to be growing in Alaska. Day neutral means their flowering (and tuberizing) is not dependent on the day length but happens whenever they progress out of their vegetative cycle. If you don’t get a day neutral variety, they’ll want to flower around the autumn equinox in late September which is too late in Alaska. Day neutral varieties will grow strong amd flower during the 24 hour days of Alaskan midsummers. If you can’t find day neutral varieties, let me know and I can put out a feeler.

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#19

I was wondering about Jerusalem artichokes. I have no experience with them in an arctic climate but would think they would be a more hardy plant.

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#20

We have tried for a few years - growing different varieties here in Yukon… Didn’t quite work. While they survive in zone 2- mostly- the growing period here is too short- sunchokes need 110-150 days… we have max 80 here. Also competition was pretty strong… between voles and hares we didn’t get much of the few tubers that grew…one also needs deep soil- might work in a river valley.
But hey we had fun…

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