I would not put them in the oven. How many pounds are you talking about? You could put them in a small room with a small electric heater and a vaporizer. Or maybe a small closet with nothing in it that could catch on fire.

Concur:I just spread them out in the barn, until temps drop into the upper 30's.
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Cool (no pun intendeD). If I put them straight into the basement it will be in the 50s and low 60s all winter with humidity around 50%.

That'll keep for months, right?

Any advice on what type of container to put them in?

I'm going to have about 50 potatoes. Not sure on pounds.

This is why I didn't try sweet potatoes this year. By the time they're ready to harvest in Massachusetts, curing temps are long gone.

Yes, in many regions curing is a real problem. I am getting ready to harvest a 300 ft row. Last year I tried to cure them in a glasshouse on open trays, didn;t work well, many tubers got sun-scalded and too hot, small ones especially were damaged. This time I will try it in the glasshouse on the trays but covered with something opaque or solid to block the sun but not all the warmth - thin metal like steel roofing would be ideal.

Absent the glasshouse I would think about some kind of temporary plastic tunnel or large frames covered with plastic, or old windows, anything to bring up the heat. Remember to cover the tubers up from the sun without eliminating air-flow. A low tunnel open on both ends would be perfect.

I set my glass-topped cold frame on the deck (it's a tempered glass shower door), put the sweet potatoes in there on trays, and cover them with sections of dry newspapers. Enough air circulates through the crevices in the deck to prevent overheating, but it gets nice and warm in there during the day. At night I bring the trays inside. They are dry in a week or so, with all wounds well healed. We keep our sweet potatoes upstairs in winter, in a room where temps rarely go below 60. I think the basement is too cool for sweet potatoes.

If you put them close to the furnace in the basement, they will cure. I can set seed trays on my furnace in January, and they are up in days. But the humidity will not be ideal for curing.

i agree with mrdoitall. here in ct. the sept. temps can be all over the place. a heater and cool mister keep my bathroom at 80 degrees and muggy for a week of curing. they are 1 layer deep in cardboard boxes used for berry picking. for safety i turn everything off at night. my sweet potatos are sweet and last in the basement (50 to 60 degrees ) until april. the small thin ones are the first to go, they get soft at the ends. and they are not washed until i need them.
i've read that fresh ones are not good baked, but can be candied or boiled, or put into pies. i like them baked, and haven't tried them uncured. maybe over time they sweeten up on their own ?

Curing is done to convert the starch into the sweetness we want in sweet potatoes. I have an area next to my shed where I set up a rack hanging from the overhead. It keeps them in the shade, but the air circulates through them. After a month, I put them in a large plant pot with some paper towels between, and then into my house for the winter. By March, I only have a few left, and will select one to start over growing my slips for the coming season.

I put them in my car with the windows closed in the sun to cure. Also, a key to having them keep is to treat them very gently. When they're in storage and you go to get some, don't dig roughly around; lift the top ones out and use them as they're stored in the box.

I agree with the heater and humidifier in the bathroom, with the sweet potatoes in boxes set in the bathtub. With the added bonus that it's wonderful to come into the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I find that sweet potatoes I stored at cool temps (55 or so) got TOO sweet. The ones I stored at room temperature were just perfect sweetness and lasted until spring.

elisa, are you talking about orange s.p.'s ? i grow just white ones...my basement gets below 55 in the dead of winter, but no problem with fungus or getting too sweet. the whites are dryer, and nutty tasting to me. my first taste of whites was a disappointment- now i prefer them . this year i actually had a few volunteers of korean purple which did almost as well as the new slips. and i froze the young leaves for soup. wish i had such luck with white potatoes- i get lower yields and they don't store that long.

pattypan, yes orange sp's. My husband and I both like them not too sweet.

What kind of potatoes have you tried? I find that Kennebec, Katahdin, Green Mountain, and Yukon Gold are great storers. Also, leaving them in the ground for a few weeks after die back, and getting them well cured (I blow a fan over mine in a single layer on newspaper on the floor, for 2 - 3 days) to harden the skins is important. They store until the next July with minimal sprouting. (need very dark storage too, to minimize sprouts, of course.) Also, no apples in the storage room.

elisa, i have just dappled in potatoes, i cut up some organic red and white potatoes from the store.the plants looked healthy. they flowered and now i realize i should have pinched off the flowers (right?). a few plants formed fruit. i have never bought seed potatoes....maybe i should ? my sweet potatoes do well enough that i don't really miss having white ones.

pattypan, I've never heard of pinching off the flowers, and I never do. Seed potatoes might be a good idea to try once and see how they do for you. They can be expensive when mail ordered, but nice and cheap if you can find them locally at a feed type store. (I can get them at Southern States.)

No problem with the temps for curing SP here in Fla. but i have been washing mine after harvest and read this damages the skin. Without refrigeration mine would be stored @ temps warm enough to promote sprouts. They lasted about 6 months last year, any suggestions how can Make them keep them longer?