Store sweet potato like ... potatoes?

Hey all,

I love sweet potato but we can't grow them here (season is waaay to short).

Just found a deal on US grown sweet potatoes for half the usual supermarket price. I would buy lots more, but I don't want to waste them.

Can I store them in my cold room just like potatoes and onions? How long will they keep?

Thanks!

Yes, they store just the same.
They are like potatoes, check them for going bad, the best ones will last till spring probably.


And choose a couple, bring them in the house, put them in water (read up on making slips off sweet potatoes) and the vines they'll grow (a slip is a vine removed early) has tasty greens. Fresh greens all winter if you have a place you can grow a plant.

Hey, thanks Pearl! I appreciate your wisdom on this. It's a great deal and the clock is ticking.  

Definitely snag some!!
:D

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:
Can I store them in my cold room just like potatoes and onions?

No. Both potatoes and sweet potatoes should be stored in high relative humidity of 80-90%.
However, the ideal temperature ranges are very different.
Potatoes should be stored at temperatures of 42-55F.
Sweet potatoes should be stored at temperatures of 55-65F.

Jonathan de Revonah wrote:
No. Both potatoes and sweet potatoes should be stored in high relative humidity of 80-90%.
However, the ideal temperature ranges are very different.
Potatoes should be stored at temperatures of 42-55F.
Sweet potatoes should be stored at temperatures of 55-65F.

I store the bulk of my sweet potatoes in the unheated room upstairs where it is usually in that temperature range but nowhere near that high humidity. Those I've picked out to make slips are stored in the bathroom where it is above 65F and higher humidity but still not that high. Those upstairs, especially smaller ones may start to whither up some on the ends or sprout prematurely. Still leftovers even from those upstairs are still good to eat a full year later.

Ideal is ideal I suppose but I think sweet potatoes have a very wide range of good enough.

we store them warm...in our living room where the heat is, so depending on things, the temp is mostly 50's to 60's...occasionally lower and rarely higher until spring.

I tend to cure them to be very dry with thicker skins (so that they keep well) so starting slips is always slow unless I remember to wrap them in warm wet towels for a day or two first.

I wonder if all of our individual sweet potato varieties that we have been growing for many years have adapted to our individual quirks? ...even clones in addition to seeds.

I agree with everyone else, but want to add, that sweet potatoes rot, if they get bruised and that can quickly spoil all of them. I store mine in wooden crates. Add some crumbled papers on the bottom and then carefully and gently place the sweet potatoes in there. You can add any that are broken (they don’t go bad from being cut or broken) as long as they haven’t been dropped, tossed or other wise bruised. Check them frequently the first two weeks, to make sure you didn’t miss a bruised sweet potato.

Mark Reed wrote:I store the bulk of my sweet potatoes... nowhere near that high humidity.

Ideal is ideal I suppose but I think sweet potatoes have a very wide range of good enough.

Agree 100%. I should've clarified that I was giving "ideals." Mine are stored in my basement w/ RH usually ~40-60%.
I lost some small ones to desiccation. I suppose less-than-ideal storage conditions will cull the ones that require ideal storage conditions.

Also, I forgot to mention the importance of curing sweet potatoes prior to storage. The ideal high RH curing conditions have been difficult for me to maintain.

I found this tankless humidifier that you can put on any size container, and I'm hoping it'll make curing easier this coming Fall:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FX7XQKL6

Lastly, it should be noted that being outside the "ideal" relative humidity range is much more forgiving than straying from the temperature range. Below 55F and you will have internal cold injury. This is the greatest risk. Above 65F, you could get sprouting sooner than you want, but that wasn't a problem for me.

Jonathan de Revonah wrote:

Agree 100%. I should've clarified that I was giving "ideals." Mine are stored in my basement w/ RH usually ~40-60%.
I lost some small ones to desiccation. I suppose less-than-ideal storage conditions will cull the ones that require ideal storage conditions..

We leave all of the small sweet potatoes in the ground, this way they sprout early and we don’t need to make slips. Of course the also means that you have to have a permanent bed for sweet potatoes. I have two of them, which I harvest from every other year. This year we have a full bed, and one we harvested last year, but left the smaller sweet potatoes in. We are already getting lots of leaves there. The full bed will be harvested around thanksgiving. We will take and eat the large ones and leave the rest. This method saves me a lot of time and effort. When all the kids stayed with us, we needed two beds of sweet potatoes, but now it’s just us and we usually get at least 200 pounds from a bed, sometimes more. I am happy to have less work to do, now it’s only my husband and I.