Do you think that if you grow the majority of your food, you have to do tons of canning and/or freezing every year to put up the harvest?
I grow the majority of our food, and I do very little canning, and I freeze very little vegetables.
In previous posts I highlighted how to ferment veggies to make sauerkraut, dilly beans, and daikon carrot ginger ferment, and tomato paste.
Everything left in the garden in the fall that doesn't get fermented goes into the root cellar.
Cabbages at the end of the season, trimmed and ready for the cellar.
What is a Root Cellar?
Many vegetables are designed to keep in biological storage mode through the winter. Hibernation, so to speak.
If you don't live in northern Vermont like I do, there are ways to garden so that you can access the veggies in your garden through the winter.
Here at the North Pole, as I like to call it, it gets too cold, and we get too much snow for an outdoor winter garden to work. And I don't want to have a greenhouse.
A root cellar provides a place to store your veggies through the winter where they won't get ruined by deep freezing, and you can easily access them.
We built our house and I was able to plan ahead for a root cellar. I had them leave a hole in a section of foundation wall that is about 8x10". This provides fresh, cold air to chill the cellar. If you have one of those shorty basement windows that are commonly found in foundations above grade, that is just as good. You need some source of cold air, even if that means cutting a small hole through concrete. Ground temperature is a bit too warm to keep veggies fresh.
Whatever opening you have, be sure to screen it to prevent mice and other critters from coming in. You need to be able to close it off during extreme cold, which can be as easy as stuffing wads of newspaper in the opening.
We walled off and insulated our root cellar.
A cellar doesn't need to be huge. Mine is about 10x14', and it is overkill. A 5x5' room would be plenty for most people. Be sure to outfit it with sturdy shelves.
I have seen descriptions of root cellars that talk about the need to keep it damp. It does NOT need to be damp. Not only is that hard to achieve, but it encourages rot in your house. Having damp micro-climates for certain veggies is just as good, and is achieved easily by keeping them in perforated buckets with lids. The cellar itself can be dry.
The same book that encouraged keeping it damp said that you need to encourage air circulation by rigging up pipes coming down from the vent. We did that at first. It was cumbersome, and we have found that it is completely unnecessary.
Put a thermometer in there. You want to regulate the temperature to keep it between 30 - 45F.
Because this kind of root cellar relies on the outdoor temperature to cool, you need to delay harvesting certain veggies till it's getting cold outside. I have found that if there is snow on the ground, it will be cold enough to keep all of my veggies cold. So I wait till the first snow to bring in things like carrots, parsnips, and cabbages. Don't wait too long, though, because you don't want the ground to freeze, or the above ground parts of the vegetables to crack because they froze too hard.
What Can You Root Cellar?
Basically anything that is not a warm season plant will keep over winter in a cold root cellar.
carrots
parsnips
cabbage
onions
potatoes
beets
radishes
turnips
apples (but they must not be stored near potatoes)
things like spinach and kale will keep for a shorter time
Warm season produce like squashes, sweet potatoes, and garlic (which is not actually warm season), prefer the warmer temperature of the main floor of your house.
Here are tips for specific veggies:
Cabbage: Put heads of dense keeping cabbages in a large plastic tote. Pull off any outer leaves with cracked midribs, as those leaves will rot in storage. They don't need to be very moist, but prevent them from drying out by laying a plastic bag over them and tucking the sides in around them. By spring, the outer leaves will be getting soft and wilted, but they will be good under those outer layers.
Onions: Let the onions stay on the ground in the garden till the leaves have completely dried up. This is usually in late summer, long before the cellar has cooled down for the winter. That's ok, they will not try to sprout if you grew storage onions. Pull off whatever tops, roots, and outer layers of peel that cling to them and bring the onions in to cure. Cure for a few days by spreading them out in a single layer. When you are ready to box them up for storage, sort out any that appear to have unhealthy outer layers, or that have double hearts. Set these aside to use first as they will not keep well. Put onions in open top boxes. They can go on upper shelves that may not be as cold as the floor of the cellar.
Potatoes: Potatoes are ready to harvest well before it's cold outside. Like onions, they don't mind being warm for a few weeks while the weather winds down. Harvest potatoes and let them cure by spreading them out in a single layer in a dark place. Once the peels are dry, box them up for storage. Set aside individuals that are green or got damaged during harvest to use first. Potatoes do not need to be moist, but they do need to be dark. Boxes or wooden crates with lids make good potato bins. They can also go on upper shelves that might be warmer than the floor of the cellar.
Carrots, Parsnips, Radishes, and Beets: These root veggies need to be harvested once it is cold enough outside for the cellar to be in the 40'sF, or they will sprout. I like to wear insulated rubber gloves when I harvest them, because the wet, cold ground freezes my hands. Break the tops off completely; whatever tops are left on will rot and get slimy in storage. Sort out any that are damaged or have bug holes to use first as they will not keep as well. Store these moist root veggies in buckets that have a few holes drilled for ventilation, but not so much ventilation that they will dry out. After a few months in storage, and every month after that, you should check how moist they are and sprinkle some water in with them if they appear to be getting dry and wilted.
Vegetables will keep nicely through the winter until spring. In the case of my root cellar, it starts getting too warm around the time that the snow melts away, in mid April. Once the temperature hits 50F, everything starts sprouting. Bring any remaining produce that you can up to your kitchen fridge to keep it those last few weeks until your garden has fresh new veggies for you to eat.
Turnips that have begun sprouting.
Alternatives to Root Cellaring
I tried creative alternatives to having a real root cellar by doing things like storing veggies in coolers against the side of the house with hay bales stacked around them. It just gets too cold here. That didn't work.
I also tried to keep potatoes in my basement before we had a functioning root cellar. It was about 50F down there. They sprouted mid winter.
It is my opinion that a partially buried refrigerator would allow its contents to freeze in this climate. Slightly warmers areas can half-bury a fridge for an inexpensive, easy to install root cellar.
The only viable alternative in cold regions, in my mind, would be to buy an extra fridge and plug it in in the basement. I know that requires electricity, but what is a root cellar if not a giant walk in refrigerator? If you have a fridge, you have the advantage of being able to keep it cold independent of what the weather outside is doing, so you would not be restricted to storing veggies to the cold season only.
How do you keep your harvest?
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