They should be fine in the short term. After you've dug them, brush off the soil with your hands but don't wash them. Their skin is very tender and very easily damaged at this point. Put them in a warm (above 55 degree) and fairly humid place and let them dry out for 3 or 4 hours. You then can put them on a table or even on a concrete slab on top of several layers of newspaper or in cardboard boxes or rubber totes lined with newspaper. Spread them out enough that they are not touching one another and cure them for a couple of week before you move them to their long-term storage location. You should eat any damaged ones first because they'll spoil quickly. Don't cure them at temps below 50 degrees though or they can sustain chill injury and that tends to make them spoil more quickly. I doubt that they sustained much, if any, harm from one freezing night because the ground itself likely did not freeze. In the future, though, try to dig up your sweet potatoes and cure them before temperatures dip below 50 degrees as exposure to temps below 50 can cause chill injury which means they will be more prone to spoil. Since you left your sweet potatoes in the ground at a time when temperatures already were going lower than 50 degrees, they may have suffered chill injury and that means that they are more prone to spoil if held in long-term storage, so use them sooner (in a few weeks) as opposed to later (a few months). If you're going to use them next week, they ought to be fine. If you have more than you will use next week, cure the unused ones for a total of 2 weeks before you move them to a cool, dry place for long-term storage. (An unheated pantry or closet is a good spot to store sweet potatoes or even a box slid under a bed.) Properly cured sweet potatoes should last at least 2-3 months. Dawn

We grow potatoes for a winter supply every year and they often keep until March/April. Maybe it is pure luck. We keep them out on a flatbed, spread out in our outside shed until it gets close to freezing. Then we bag them in burlap bags or put them in pails . We put them in our attached garage on a palet so they are not on the cement floor. We store them there until the temps get very cold. Then we move them to our celler which is "yukky" and damp so don't have them there very long. We do place a thermometer in the garage close to them so we can watch the temp a bit.Some years we just place them up on the landing over night when it is very cold and then put them back down. Confusing?? Have you ever tried freezing or canning them? Freezing the small ones is my project for tomorrow. We picked ours yesterday and got about 5 -5 gallon pails of big ones and a 1/2 pail of the small ones.I usually do hash browns but am goin to try tater tots this year. We will see how that turns out.Our kids really like the hash browns.Hope this helps.

it also helps, if you place them in a box in one layer and set the box in indirect light about 4 weeks before planting. Make sure they do not dry out - either spray them daily or place them on the net tray(like the net trays they use in nurseries) and put the net tray inside of a tray with wet wood dust or similar material(with no direct access of potatoes to the wet material). They will start to grow ahead of planting time and come out earlier.

We have posted our intern position on the OSU hire board. Fingers crossed. https://www.myinterfase.com/okstate/job.aspx *Job ID:78500 *Job Title:Vegetable Grower Employer Name : Vision Farms Work Schedule:DailyWage/Salary:$400 mo & housing*Job Description:Growing food for sale and for our charity. You will need a good foundation in agronomy and business. We will support you with equipment, seed, tools, etc... Your housing is only one mile from the ten acre plot you will be responsible for. We do not use pesticide or herbicide. You will be responsible for market research, customer development, crop planning, crop care, harvesting, record keeping and marketing. We have another garden plot you can use to grow cash crops to supplement your wages.*Application Instructions:Please call Jennifer Bozarth @ 405-570-2505 or Johnny Coleman @ 405-531-1229 OR email Johnny8@cox.net https://www.facebook.com/visionfarms