The Great Potatoe Save

The temperature got down to 5 degrees then dropped to minus 14 for several days. That really isn't cold, say my friends in Canada. But the potatoes in the root cellar started to freeze. I don't have a thermometer to keep track of the inside temperature in there yet.

   Now before you knock my root cellar let me tell you that it really has a few very serious issues that haven't been completed yet: like no door! A sleeping bag covered the apples and potatoes and a blanket hung over the door. In it's (root cellar) defense the potatoes were keeping very well in 20 and 15 degree weather. Anyhow 14 below was to cold and yes, the damage began.

   Frozen potatoes have a sickeningly sweet flavor. I have trouble with even cooking them. They aren't ruined by any means and if they are prepared as they are thawing or soon after they are fine, just strangely sweet. But they will sour, then soon rot if you decide to procrastinate (procrastination is a decision). I was about to do just that ~ I really wasn't wanting to dig around thawing, maybe rotting, muddy potatoes. After all the chickens could use a treat. But my conscience pricked me: thinking of all the stories I've read of people in hiding; rotting frozen potatoes being one of their appreciated foods.

  Abigail and I sucked it up and dug in. It wasn't that bad at all ~ not many rotten ones (we had really nice quality potatoes this year) and while the thawed potatoes were very squishy and hard to peel, the frozen ones were hard on the hands. I was wondering if this is what "chilblains" felt like., our hands were so cold. The goats and chickens loved the peels (We decided to peel them because the squirrels had gotten into the root cellar and left droppings as they sampled).

   So after all that, red and sore hands we ended up with a canner pot very full of chunked potatoes. In the meantime I visited the one and only Canning Granny and followed her instructions. It was just that easy!

My point in sharing this is that you can successfully can potatoes that have frozen. We opened a jar and fried them up and they were so delicious, one sample jar wasn't enough! We felt so much better not having wasted all our work in the garden. I think from now on I will make a point of canning all the potatoes that have been stabbed or sliced during harvest - it never seems like we get them used up fast enough.