Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Growing in Greenhouses & Polytunnels => Topic started by: shokkyy on February 12, 2012, 18:14
-
In the Grow Food in your Polytunnel book, they make several mentions of using the tunnel as a place for storing crops like onions (as well as for drying them out). That surprised me, because I would have thought the humidity level would be a little high for storing onions. But if that is the case, would it also be a good place for storing sacks of spuds and parsnips through the winter? I guess it would give them some protection from frost, probably more than in my garage where I usually store them, but would it be enough.
-
I stored (and dried) our onions in our poly last year, and just took a few home as and when needed.
I had no problems with damp etc, maybe because I had both doors open all the time, I think it would be a different story if I had closed the doors. :ohmy:
-
I don't think spuds would stand a chance overwinter. They might be out of wind and rain, but the temperatures will still often drop below freezing inside :(
-
Chooks, who are in my tunnel at the mo, water is freezing
-
I think with onions, you'd most likely hang them from ceiling supports to keep them dry, but closed doors could ruin all efforts. Can't picture anyone hanging spuds the same way.
Best storage for parsnips at home is to bury them in tallish buckets of soil and keep them in the garage. The soil will protect from the worst of cold weather. Wouldn't chance it with potatoes though, they're just too cold sensitive.
-
The last few years I've been keeping sacks of spuds (and occasionally parsnips) toward the back of my garage, and they've survived surprisingly well in there. It's a huge garage, big enough to hold four cars, and the entire front side is an enormous door which we haven't been able to shut for several years. So although the spuds have some protection from the elements, I wouldn't have thought there's an awful lot of protection from frost. When we had that very long cold spell last winter I did lose half a sack, but other than that they've been fine.
But if I can at least hang up garlic and onions in the tunnel that would be good, because they always get much too warm in the house and start sprouting.
-
But on a sunny day, be prepared for the smell of gently cooking onoins though, Shokky :ohmy:
-
But on a sunny day, be prepared for the smell of gently cooking onoins though, Shokky :ohmy:
We've got no chance of that now, we've only got three left out of 150! :(