You may be harvesting quite a lot of beets, carrots and onions around about now, and hopefully maincrop potatoes will be next. Storing these underground delights properly will give you a little longer to enjoy them in the kitchen!
Beetroots, Carrots, (and other roots) & Potatoes:
You may be relieved to hear that we are not about to tell you to make a vegetable clamp…our solutions are much more straightforward.
- Leave them in the ground
If slugs and other pests are not a problem (watch out for voles who like to have a nibble underground!), then there is no problem in simply cutting off the foliage and leaving the roots in the soil until you are ready to use them. - Store them in a cool, dry place
All you need is a potato sack (or a crate). Simply pop the roots in the sack and leave them in a cool, dry, dark place – this could be your larder, or a garage/shed. Please be careful not to store them somewhere where rodents are a problem though. If this is the case, then we’d recommend getting an old metal bin and drilling a few air holes in the sides. Then you can keep the sacks of veg in the bin with the lid on and not worry too much!
Onions ( & Shallots):
Most growers tend to harvest all their onions in one go and leave them to dry in the sunshine before taking them into the kitchen. This can mean that you have more onions than you need! The trick to storing them is to first make sure that the skins are well dried out (i.e brown and papery like the ones you buy in the shop!) and then to hang them so that the air can circulate. Tie them in bunches, or pop them into a net bag, and hang them on a hook in the kitchen or larder. They should keep very well as long as they don’t get too hot.