Self-sufficiency in spuds for a family of four kids is an awful lot of sacks cluttering up all the cool dark spaces in my flat!   One way of storing large quantities of potatoes and root crops is to build a clamp on your allotment - it's how root vegetables used to be stored in the days before cold storage.

How to build a Clamp

• Choose your site carefully - it must be well-drained and fairly well sheltered!
• Lay a bed of straw about 6 inches thick over an area about 4 to 5 feet wide; don't go any wider, although it can be longer.
• Pile your potatoes, swede, turnip, parsnip or carrots on the straw bed - make as neat a pyramid as possible to about 2 feet high.   Rather than piling higher, it is better to lengthen your pile along the ground.
• Cover the pyramid with 6 inches of straw and leave the roots to "sweat" a few days.
• Cover the straw with at least 6 inches of soil, well packed with the back of your spade.   If you take the soil from a circle around the clamp, you will also be building a drainage ditch - very useful!   The whole clamp should be covered with soil, except for a "chimney" - a tuft of straw at the peak to act as a ventilator.   The idea is that this keeps the roots cool and dark, but frost free.   They should stay fresh all winter as long as you don't open it when there is a frost.
• Whenever you want some veg from the store for the kitchen, you can either put your hand down the chimney and pull out moderate quantities, or open the side of the clamp carefully, remove as many as you need, and replace the covering.
• Caution - this is written from child-hood memory!   I would have tried it this year, but for the experience of having foxes raid my potato beds.   The only way I can figure out to protect against foxes (or other animals) getting to my store first would be to lay stout chicken netting first, under the straw bed, build the clamp, bend the roll of netting over the top of the earth covering, and cover again with soil.