root cellar help, long

[cknmom]

I think this is the right place to post. I want to build a root cellar or something to preserve my harvest.
I saw digits post about his carrots, that's kind of what I had in mind. We have TONS of rabbits , ground squirrels, gophers, moles, voles. So I believe that we must line the hole/ditch with chicken wire or something first.

I had been on a web site that talked about digging down a few feet, shoreing the sides, putting some kind of a door on top, then putting a floorless garden shed over the top. That way you could use underground for the things that needed cold storage:root veggies etc. and shelves in the stroge shed for canned things and things that don't need to be as cold.

The problem with that here is that it gets in single digits in the winter and in the 90's in the summer. I don't want the things in the shed gettting frozen or cooked depending on the season.

Has anyone tried this type of storage? Any ideas about it?

I need something as I can't keep any root veggie or fruit here in the summer, it rots in two days!!

Monica

 

[digitS']

Monica, when I was a young guy I dug a cellar and then put a woodshed above it. It was kinda okay . . . kept the firewood dry. The fact that I wasn't planning to use it long was certainly correct. A more substantial cellar was put in within a couple of years and my wood-lined cellar became obsolete (just a few years before the whole thing began to collapse. )

My new cellar, much like what I have to work with now, was in my basement and had concrete walls and a dirt floor. Works pretty darn well - I've got a ton of dahlia and gladiola roots down there in the current cellar. The onions on the shelves have started to grow so it can't be called perfect. The roots sit in bags with peat moss directly on the cold, cold floor.

Certainly, if you don't want to build a concrete-walled cellar (or have a wood one that will collapse after a few years ), there are simpler ways to go. An Irish gardener told me that she needed to build a "potato clamp." I'd never heard that term so she sent this link to explain. I figure an Irish woman should know something about potatoes.

When I was at the University of Idaho, I lived where my view was an old farm cellar. Practically the only object on the horizon - gosh, it was a boring view ! The farm grew wheat while I lived there so the cellar wasn't used.

This large cellar was a mound of earth with a garage door on one side. In the center on top the mound was a small structure that looked like an outhouse for people less than 4 feet tall. I assume that was a vent.

Steve

 

[nightshade]

We are planning on building one this summer. Our idea is a 10x10 block building built into a large bank we have in our back yard. This way we can fill in around it and even possibly plant the roof with grass. There would be little excavating because it is basicly a strait drop off anyway, finding enough clean fill seems to be a challange though. This might be an idea for you if you have a good size bank to work with you wouldn't have to go as large as we are planning just big enough to suit your needs. We are going kinda big so I can put also home canned items and homemade wine in it too.

edited for horrible spelling eek

 

[patandchickens]

The problem with that here is that it gets in single digits in the winter and in the 90's in the summer. I don't want the things in the shed gettting frozen or cooked depending on the season.

Well, it's not going to be much like a restaurant's walk-in refrigerator You can't be SURE (at least not til you've used it for several years) that things won't freeze, and there is indeed a limit to how cool you'll be able to keep things in the summer, especially with a small reach-in cellar like I think you are talking about.

However it is still a whole lot better than not being able to store produce at all, right? What people usually do is put in what they've got, use the stuff that won't keep as well first, then keep an eye on the cellar and if you think it's about to freeze (or it actually does) then either go on a stored vegetable eating binge or process the stuff and store it in a different way (although by that time, the quality is not going to be great). You may indeed lose some. But again, it's better than losing *most* of it if you have no better way of keeping it.

(btw, single digits in winter is not *that* cold, and if you dig your cellar several feet deep and insulate the upper walls and pile a buncha hay or straw bales on top of it in cold weather and stuff like that, you may in fact be able to avoid freezing.)

People with small root cellars do not in my experience generally use them in summertime. Not only are they not really cool enough to be of great use, but there are SO many bugs active in the summer that it can be hard to keep things from getting ucky. If you have a deep, large properly-built (meaning, properly shored up masonry walls) cellar or springhouse, you *can* keep things usefully cool in the summer, but that is a real big expensive thing to construct.

I knew someone with a small underground storage like I think you are describing who would leave it open all summer so the ground inside it could warm up as much as possible. It would turn into a temporary pond during rainy stretches but he was on very sandy-gravelly soil so it did not stay permanently wet. He thought it made a real difference in how it worked during the winter. For what that's worth.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Rosalind]

A proper root cellar, the kind that stays around 40-50 degrees most of the year, has to be really quite deep to get well below the frost line. Most of the original Colonial New England houses were initially built as you describe: a cellar with a shed-like structure on top. The diaries of that time say they were very bad and not much better than caves.

Most of the similar original root cellars in antique homes round these parts are about 5' deep. Walls are shored up with any old rocks they had laying around, in this case local granite. This was all done by unskilled labor, so while I don't think it was especially difficult (no more difficult than building your average retaining wall) it is nevertheless a lot of backbreaking work.

Mice and so forth will be a problem. Rabbits not so much, but mice, voles, rats, etc. will get in.

 

[ksacres]

So, can someone please explain the difference between a basement and a cellar? I have always been confused on that.

Would my basement work for root storage or do I need a cellar??

 

[newchickwi]

Have you checked out the Bubel book, "Rootcellaring"? It's a great book and it has many examples of all different kinds of rootcellars and how to make them. They even suggest which varieties of fruits and veggies make the best keepers. I checked it out from our interlibrary loan program--and then ended up buying it for myself!

 

[cknmom]

No I hadn't heard of it, thank you, I will look for it.
Monica

 

[bqmother]

when we lived in the city and had no basement, my dad dug a small hole and lined it with straw. It was not large enough to go into, but just big enough for storing a couple of bushels of potatoes. He put in a small wooden door, laid flat, covered it with about
6" of dirt.

I don't remember what he did with onions and carrots, but I'm told that carrots can just stay in the ground where they are grown all winter until you dig them up. They'll stop growing at about 40 degrees fahrenheit, but stay alive all winter and still be good come spring. maybe even better. Does anyone else know about this?

 

[cknmom]

For now that's knida of what we had in mind, just didn't know if it would workout. Thanks
Monica