Root Cellaring

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Once you've "borrowed" cold—from the earth in fall and from outside air in winter—you'll want to keep the chill in. To do this, insulate any surface of the storage space that is likely to be unduly warmed (the ceiling, interior walls, and door of a basement room) or chilled (the door and ceiling of an underground root cellar). Exterior walls surrounded by earth need no insulation. For walls that do, choose one of the rigid foam insulation boards rather than fiberglass, which gets soaked by condensation. Old-time gardeners used dry leaves, sawdust, wood shavings, straw, and even cinders to insulate their produce hideaways.

Don't concrete the floor of your cold-keeper. The constant cooling and humidifying influence of a dirt floor is one of the secrets of good vegetable storage. If you're enclosing a basement room that already has a cement floor, use it for a few seasons to check it out. If the pantry stays too dry, spread an inch of gravel on the floor. Then you can dampen the gravel to increase air moisture.

Building an Outside Root Cellar

Whatever you use to enclose your cellar, your first step after choosing a site will be to dig a hole or hire a backhoe to scoop out a space, either directly underground or set into a hill. Next, install a drainpipe in your cellar floor. Then make forms to support a poured-concrete foundation on which the walls will be built. The foundation should be twice as wide as the walls will be thick (16" for standard 8" X 16" concrete blocks). If you want to mix your own concrete, here's a recipe for a good strong mixture: 1 part cement, 2-1/4 parts sand, 3 parts gravel, and just enough water to make it spreadable. If you have premix delivered, be sure to order enough for the job. Running out of concrete in mid-pour is, as our country neighbor says, embarrassing!

Now, after marking corners carefully with stakes and crossed string, begin to lay block on the footers, starting at the corners and gradually filling in the sides. A good mortar mix to cement the blocks or stones together is 1 part cement, 1 part lime, and 4 parts sand, mixed with enough water to make the "mud" plastic. Stack the walls 6-1/2' to 8' high. Then build a form to support a roof of poured concrete: a piece of 3/4" plywood supported by joists set on beams which rest on 4 X 4 posts. (The joists can be 2 X 4s set 16" apart or 2 X 6s 24" apart. The beams should be made from 2 X 6s. And you should set the 4 X 4 posts no farther than four feet apart in all directions.) Top the plywood with a sheet of 6-mil plastic and make a form of 2 X 6 lumber to run around the exposed perimeter of the board to contain the thickness of the ceiling concrete. Embed 5/8" steel rebar in an 18" to 24" grid in 'the bottom half of the 6" concrete roof. If you construct your walls of poured concrete rather than of blocks, be sure to brace the forms within the room firmly. If they collapse, you may be stuck with a buried free-form "sculpture" and no space!

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