We've been putting in 400 lb seed tatoes for 7-8 years; yukon golds & iditareds. I always have 1000 lb in basement, they stay good till march; need a root cellar too; wife won't let me dig up cement in basement. The Indians help me dig them and I give alot away to friends actually. We always put up 75 gal bags of carotts, grow cabbage & brocc.
Wife and I have our teaching certs, forever get offers from urban Ak; can't bring ourselves to leave here. Ya know, livin is cheap here, and quite safe; hard to leave now the kids are grown and off to school.
Hey, bud! I’m about 400 miles down the river. Sorry to hear about the ice jams and so forth this spring. It looked really bad. Hope you and your house made it through all right.
I built the root cellar here using the style given to me by Tim Myers down there in Bethel. I dug a small spot out in the dirt - about a foot down, didn’t want to bother the permafrost - then built an insulated shed and then put 47 truckloads of soil over the top. This evening’s inside temperature: 33.3 degrees. We have a light bulb in there keeping it warm, but it was still 31.1 when the outside got down to -37 a few weeks back.
We like the Yukon Golds but I got to tell you - the German Butterballs and French Fingerlings are also real good down here. The Norkota Russetts do the best, but we prefer the frying potatoes over the bakers.
We give out potatoes to the elders, too. This is our first year with the cellar, so we don’t have as much stuff as you, but next year we’ll pack it up.
The store here has these dark blue plastic trays for soda pop that are really good for use in the cellar - they never gather moisture, and air circulates all throughout.
I also have my certificate, and I never got offers from the road schools... hey, which includes you for half the year. LOL
Um... drop me mail about the location and so forth. If I tell the world where I am, I’ll be easy to pick out of the population in this tiny place... and I like my privacy.
Keep warm.