Trash can root cellar

[Bentley]

http://www.ehow.com/how_5894594_make...rbage-can.html

Interesting little article. In the deep south, homes do not have basements due to the high water tables in most places. Root cellars are tough to justify, so I was looking for a less expensive option to store potatoes, turnips, and maybe some carrots. Fall garden Winter storage is not a problem. Summer storage is a huge problem. We have a screened in patio, and we stored potatoes on the patio in old milk crates. That works fair, but the losses are still relatively high due to the high temperatures.

The garbage can root cellar seems like a decent idea except for one issue; How to keep out fire ants and other insects. Anyone have the magic answer?

b

[linda b]

I stored my potatoes in milk cartons over winter into middle summer in my well house packed with leaves around the sdes of the building central Arkansas

[Paquebot]

Root cellars and clamps are not for summer storage. They are for winter storage following a fall harvest. Even in the North they would sit empty during the summer as inside temperatures would not be much lower than outside unless they were really deep. I use a buried 28-gallon Rubbermaid container for storage of some root crops. It's not to keep them cool but rather to keep them warm. By 1 May, anything left is sprouting or rotting.

Martin

[Jan Doling]

In the South they often kept things is the Spring House. Still it wouldn't store them for a whole season, just prolonged the life of the vegetable.