Tell me about your root cellar...

[Mutti]

or how you store root crops all winter sucessfully. We have a very insulated storage room in our garage and wonder if we can adapt to storing veggies thru the winter. Trouble here in MO is that it doesn't get really cold until late Nov...then we have alot of ups and downs with,generally, only a couple of extreme cold spells. So regulating the temp would be of prime concern. Have been contemplating just digging a real root cellar. We have a rock cellar just under the kitchen part of this old farm house but it stays too warm with the water heater and all the piping for the wood hot water boiler system. Thanks for your help....DEE

[kreig]

we made a root cellar out of a big piece of culvert with treated wooden ends. I then tarred the whole thing, covered it with tarps and buried it( one end has a stairway). It works very well and while the temperature does fluctuate seasonally it seems to always stay below 60 in the summer and above 40 in the winter (zone 5 here). It was pretty cheap to do since I got free wood from a deck a friend tore out and and a culvert that had been replaced by the county. It has been several years now with no problems.

[Sanza]

My root cellar is actually dug right into a hill and the temperature stays about 40 all year round even when it gets to -40 here. It's about 6' wide and 12' long with shelves and bins for the root vegetables. I have had great luck by storing the carrots, parsnips and beets etc in sand.

[DebM]

We just moved to an old homestead in south central KY. Some kind soul (not the landlord, he suspects the neighbor) cleared out at least two years of garbage bags from the root cellar, with just a few pieces of junk to send to the landfill left. One side has that steps that lead downward and the right side is a small storage shed for our garden tools and perfect area for our storage tubs of stuff that won't fit in the house. I am soooo excited!

[jwal10]

My root cellar is small, 18" deep shelves on each side and area to stack potato boxes in the back. Dug into the hillside, concrete walls for all below ground, door faces north so south side is 6' in the ground. Concrete steps and drain in the front to keep water out. Cellar needs humidity but moisture is a problem. I have 2 vents from the floor up through the ceiling for air movement. All wood walls are 2"x8" and insulated. Thick insulated door. Built in the ground keeps temps stable....James

[lmrose]

Our root cellar is a ten foot square area in our rock wall basement. This area houses the electric and hand water pumps, all water pipes and electrical panel box as well as wooden bins and barrels and a chest freezer without a lid for storing vegetables. There are two windows for cross ventilation that are sealed in the winter. There is a door at the bottom of the stairs and trap door at the top. Temps. stay above freezing all winter.Everything keeps good until spring when plants naturally start to grow. Then potatoes have to be sprouted to keep until late July when new ones are ready to eat.

[VT Chicklit]

My root cellar is my cellar hatch way. We have made a "plug from a full sheet of plywood and a sheet of compressed insulation. The plug is placed resting on the cement part of our cellar hatch around the first of November. It keeps the real cold from our cellar hatch stairs, which are used as shelves during the winter. There is a door into the basement at the bottom of the hatch stairs that we keep closed unless the cold goes well below zero, at which time we open the door an inch or two to let in some of the "warmer" cellar air. This setup will keep my carrots, cabbages, apples and root veggies good until spring,

[farmerbrian]

Sanza, you have any pictures you can share of your root cellar?

[jwal10]

I keep my squash in the insulated garage, concrete floor, it has dryer air. The onions are kept in my shop, hung up on the walls, it is warmer and dry in there. My root cellar has potatoes, apples, pears and a keg of cider, it is also 1/2 my canned food storage. The garage has the other 1/2. I have carrots, turnips, kohlrabi, beets and cabbages growing all winter under hoops on raised beds. Nothing better than carrots after frost, very sweet....James

[Horseyrider]

We're in the process of reclaiming our root cellar now. About twenty years ago I let it go because I got so deep into showing and training horses, I just didn't have time for both. Now I'm burned out on the show and other peoples' horses thing, so we're cleaning it out and reworking it for next year. It's one of the main reasons we bought this property years and years ago.

Our land was part of a grant given to a fellow who served as a doctor in the Civil War. It was originally built on a crawl space with a stone foundation; but when the time came that oil heat could be added, they dug underneath the house and built what are called Yankee walls. They're about waist high and jut out into the room about three or four feet on the north side, and two or three feet on the east, west, and south side. (An addition was put on the south side of the house before WWI, also on a crawl space.) Two rooms were made in the basement part; one for the heat plant, and one for a root cellar. Omigosh, it has a plaster and lathe ceiling, brick wall on one side, and the old stone all around! East and west sides have what look like basement windows, but they have screens and ancient wooden shutters. They're a wee bit above ground level so if I need cold air in there, I need only open the windows during appropriate temperatures and the cold falls right in. The floors are a porous brick, and they can be watered to release humidity slowly. There's an old laundry hookup in the furnace area, so I even have hot and cold running water down there.

We always kept potatoes on the furnace side, as it was always in the low sixties; but the other side, the root cellar side, can be kept quite cool. That had cabbages, onions, crocks of kraut, winter squash, carrots, and parsnips on one side, and apples on the other. It also has electricity so I can have good light, and even run a fan, or a dehumidifier if things get too damp. I have access from the outside through a Bilco door, and from the inside too. I just about danced when I saw that old stairway leading up to the familyroom! That meant I could go downstairs and grab produce in my slippers if I wanted to. No coat and gloves, no digging through snow and straw, just easy retrieving.

I know it might seem corny to think this way, but sometimes when I'm down there I can't help but reflect on the resourcefulness of the people who built this house and maintained it through the years. I look at those old stones and think of the hands of the men who laid them so long ago with such care, of the farm women stocking that room wearing long dresses they almost certainly made with their own hands, and wonder what they'd think of the use of their home now.

I can hardly wait to have that root cellar in use again!

[Sanza]

Originally Posted by farmerbrian

Sanza, you have any pictures you can share of your root cellar?

I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them.

[Maggie]

Horseyrider, I love your pondering about the previous residents of your house I would love to have that root cellar!

[Shep]

Hi all. Here in the PNW we have successfully root cellared our carrots, turnips and beets in a metal garbage can. We dug a hole big enough to sink the metal garbage can into up to it's lid rim, then layered damp sawdust, carrots, sawdust, beets, sawdust, turnips, etc up to the top. We alternated the layers of veggies so that I didn't have to dig through carrots when I wanted beets. Covered it in sawdust and put the lid on. We wired the lid shut to keep varmits from getting into it and we have had great veggies all winter. I scrub the veggies before cooking them and they are as fresh as if I just picked them. BTW, when you layer don't let the veggies touch one another if you can help it.

Blessings,

Shep

[Sanza]

Well I finally took the pictures! This first one shows how it's situated right below the garden. I haven't used it for these last 5 or so years now.


You can see both the outside and inside doors


Shelves on one side


wood bins on the other side


I hope this gives you a better idea of how it looks Farmerbrian and Mutti

I read about digging a hole big enough for an old broken chest freezer. Set the freezer down into the hole and backfill with dirt. Just keep the lid of the freezer just above ground.

Supposedly this works fairly well. I suppose it would also depend on the region.

Just a suggestion.

[City Bound]

I am going to try using a cooler and leaving it right on my porch this winter. amyeb this will work, maybe not.

[farmerbrian]

Originally Posted by Sanza

Well I finally took the pictures! This first one shows how it's situated right below the garden. I haven't used it for these last 5 or so years now.


You can see both the outside and inside doors


Shelves on one side


wood bins on the other side


I hope this gives you a better idea of how it looks Farmerbrian and Mutti

Hi Sanza thanks for the Pics! Looks like only the first one came through though

Did you have take any special measures for water or pest control in your cellar?