I think we came up on a solution for storing the bumper crop of carrots and white potatoes that I'm expecting this year: A make-shift, homemade ugly demi-cellar.
So you know that we live in a fairly typical 1970's ranch. Partial basement. Underinsulated. Drafty windows. Yeah, typical. We added more insulation and replaced all the old single pane windows with double panes, with one exception: the foundation window. It's drafty. Leaky. During severe storms, you can actually see snow flakes blowing in. And that leaky window is going to be our saving grace this fall.
The plan is to build a floor to ceiling cabinet, with 4 or 5 shelves, completely enclosing the leaky window. We're talking about installing a vent at the bottom of the cabinet for air flow and painting the glass black to block out the light. We may end up replacing the window with glass blocks and a vent to allow better temperature control, but for now, our drafty old window will work. This should provide a very cold spot for storing potatoes, carrots and apples, while keeping the basement a few degrees warmer. It will also free up precious shelf space for storing onions and sweet potatoes that need slightly warmer temperatures.
I'm so excited about this project.
There's so much more we could do here, in terms of gardening; fall crops of beets, turnips, cabbages, leeks, but without a means of storage, it would be a huge waste of time, energy and money. But if we can rig up a cabinet that uses our cold Ohio winters for natural, non-electric cooling, then wow, the possibilities!
Eventually, if we stay in this house, I'd love a proper root cellar. Maybe at the side of the house where the land naturally slopes away, but for now, this cabinet may be a real solution for storing our fall crops.
What kind of solutions have you found for preserving your bounty?
9 comments:
You know I'm not in "cold" country, so I can't use it, but some of the "old timey" books I have include a design for roots that is pretty much just a hole in the ground. You would have one or two metal barrels (I think the plastic ones would work) of about 55 gallon size. Dig a hole, place the barrel on it's side in the ditch, leaving space to access the front of the barrel that has a removable cover/lid (I think they weld a hinge on one side of the lid at the bottom, with a latch on the top), then cover with straw to about 1-2 ft depending on how cold your winter is, then put dirt/sand on top of that. Root veggies are stored in the barrel, with straw between layers.
If your area is subject to possible rain damage, you also need a French drain arrangement to allow it to drain away from the barrel.
I'll try to find a picture somewhere...
Also...
When we lived in Germany, it was odd to me to see their fields of cabbages left unharvested during winter time. They seemed to do just fine. No protection. Small home gardens also had brussel sprouts - even in dead of winter, they'd go out and cut off what they needed, leaving the rest of the plant there. (have you ever seen the brussel sprout plants? sort of like hollyhocks with little bitty cabbages instead of flowers...)
I'd love to have a root cellar put in at our new home. Our storage space is limited to the outside storage buildings that are currently on the property and neither is really good for storing produce in any form. We have a window AC unit in the larger building to keep it below 80* for our long term bulk food storage and canned goods, but that's not nearly cool enough for storing root crops.
Ideally I'd like to do a combination storm cellar and root cellar. Kill two birds with one stone by having a safe place to go if a bad storm is heading our way AND keeping our root crops cool. We have a pier and beam foundation and I'm actually trying to figure out if we could install the root cellar under the house. We'll see.
Emma
City Roots, Country Life
What a great solution, Andrea! I wish I could share that I have some great idea for here, too, but I don't. I'm going to have to really think outside the box on this one (not easy for me!).
Check this out:
http://theepicenter.com/tow1102.html
Sue, I've seen pictures of the old barrel cellars...have you ever seen a cellar made from a defunct refrigerator or freezer??? That is interesting :) We kept kale out in the garden all year last year and it did well...it wasn't pretty after being exposed to the ice, snow, freezing rain, etc, but it was delicious. And yes, I've seen brussel sprouts before...I have 3 of them in the garden now.
Emma-isn't it amazing how quickly your priorities can change? I keep trying to talk my husband into expanding our basement with a root cellar, but he gets this glazed over expression and leaves the room LOL.
Amy- if there's one thing OHio has plenty of, it's cold winters for free refrigeration. I lined up apple crates for the shelves yesterday, so I'm pretty excited to see how this works out.
Hi Andrea
I have a cold cellar that is the basement of the orginal house, its not bad on it own, but with a little help it stays quite cool and can be used for canning and some root cellaring with ease.
I have a large cement cystern in what we can the little red shed, and I find it better for certain types of root veggies, the only problem is that you have to haul the crates up to get to them, as you can't go down yourself but its so deep that with min cover, you can keep things from freezing quite well.
I have such high water levels that I am quite limited on where I can dig, I got a old fridge for ten dollars that was to be turned into in ground cellar, but in the end, I finally gave up and now use its as a starting greenhouse for seedlings.
farmgal-can you elaborate on how you use a fridge as a starter greenhouse? I can't picture that.
Hi Andrea
Sure, you take your old fridge, motor removed and drained, you take off the door, leaving the freezer area, and all your shelves in place, as well as the two drawers
Then you go get heavy greenhouse plastic, and for me at least, I got magnetic strips that attach the plastic where I want it, makes it very easy to move it around for extra air etc, I have mine set up so I can easily swing it way from the direct sun or into the direct sun depending.
So the first thing it gets used for is winter sowning, or any seeds that need the cold to then start again in flats, same with the drawers, if the seed needs to go though the cold, I will move them out to the drawers at the right time in winter.. once they are done, then I take other cold hardy starts, turn the fridge into the sun, its a black fridge, helping it heat up, and I use the shelves for each tray and a tray in the freezer area, and one on top of the bottom drawers so a total of five tray area's that are about 3 by 3, which as you know can start a fair number of plants, just remember to swing the trays daily, then I have a rack, that I move them to for more sun but back into the fridge to keep from getting to frosty at night.
Hope that helps explain how its used..
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