What's in your root cellar

[21incher]

Just finished stocking up the root cellar for fall. We realized how important it really is these days to have extra food on hand for emergencies and added a little extra this year.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
It's only a 6 x 8 room and we are ready for the second wave

[btulloh]

Very impressive. 

Do you do anything to control or monitor humidity?  Do those onions keep well?

Looks like a lot work but no doubt it’s time well spent. Thanks for sharing.

[21incher]

Very impressive.

Do you do anything to control or monitor humidity?  Do those onions keep well?

Looks like a lot work but no doubt it’s time well spent. Thanks for sharing.

I do not monitor  humidity.  The small ones  are shallots and they are good till next spring.  We plant any left for the next year. The onions will usually  make it until spring but it all depends on the outside  temps. I try to keep it below 40 deg in there but sometimes  it gets warmer if the temperatures outside warm up early. 

[thecfarm]

Looks better than my root cellar. More stuff in it too.
I have a dirt floor in mine, covered in a layer of small stones. I insulated the sides and the ceiling with 2 inch blue board, put a exterior door in it and it works good. The sun room is right above it. I checked the temp the first year we had it, never got below 42° and never above 48° in the winter. I just have wooden shelves in mine. We have a lot of cans goods, some bought, some that we can. You all know I don't eat veggies, so not much veggies in there. Freezer full of meat. 

[kantuckid]

I like butternut squash a lot but not that much? They keep for a very long time but that's a serious pile of them. We worked up pumpkins into mush similar to canned stuff and froze in bags for soup, pies, muffins. 
Onions I don't try to store long and quit raising potatoes some years ago as too lazy to not just buy them. 

New potato recipe: Boil smallish, new, baking potatoes in salt water until tender, we used the yellow type. Then smash with a potato masher, flip and same smash again at 180 degrees from 1st time, place onto an olive oil cookie sheet or pizza pan until about 1/2-3/4" thick then bake at 425 until nice and crispy on the edges. We used butter before baking, chives and sour cream at the table on ours

[mike_belben]

Wow that is some impressive prepping.  

[21incher]

Wow that is some impressive prepping.  

We call it enjoying the garden year round. Have done it for years. Sure was nice not having  to go out for food this spring with the pandemic though.

[Paul_H]

21incher,

That's a very neat setup you have there and well stocked, ours is more like thecfarm's. The owner before us had built this 10'x 10' roothouse into the sidehill and even during last years sub zero deg F temps it was a few deg above freezing in the roothouse. We have a dirt floor covered with 3/4 crush and it helps keep the humidity up where it needs to be for root veg like carrots, parsnips, turnips and spuds. The snow cover helps to insulate.



This load of carrots in the bucket are buried in these two boxes and covered in moist sand and they keep well into late Spring. It was more carrots than I intended but germination was high. Parsnips are buried in with the carrots We give away plenty 





The spuds are sorted into sizes and we'll go through most this winter and setting aside a selection of seed for next year. I planted too early and too deep this year then planted an extra row 3 weeks later 4" deep that had a far better yield than the earlier rows. Next year I hope to fill the three bins to the top.




Our squash, onions, garlic and dry beans and corn from the garden are kept in a cool dry room in the basement. The dry corn we either grind up for corn bread and pancakes or we nixtimalize with screened wood ash from the woodstove and make tortillas.
We learned the hard way that squash and onions don't store in the same conditions that work for root veggies 

 

[SwampDonkey]

Wow, you guys have some great cellars there. I don't have one here and the basement is way too warm for carrots at 65F. My squash is good until Christmas and my taters are always good. My onions never spoil unless the summer is too hot. I eat my own onions all winter. I keep the parsnip for spring digging from the garden, nice and sweet then.

When father had potato sheds, we used to keep cabbage and carrots in there. Was never heated unless we was working with the doors open to load trucks.

[thecfarm]

My basement is at 76°. I like the warm floors.    The root cellar is a separate room. The root cellar is 12' x 16', I think.