The Year-Round Harvest

Image Gallery What can a root cellar do for your? It can give you fresh endive in December; savory Chinese cabbage in January, juicy apples in February; crisp carrots in March; and sturdy potatoes in April.

The fundamentals of root cellaring.

By Mike and Nancy Bubel

Root cellars are as useful today as ever. In fact, root cellars in all forms are very up-to-date, what with the costs of food and its processing getting higher every year. As we see it, root cellars are right up there with wood heat, bicycles, and backyard gardens as a simple, low-technology way of living well-independently.

The term "root cellars," as used here, includes the whole range of ingenious vegetable-saving techniques, from hillside caves to garden trenches. The traditional root cellar is an underground storage space for vegetables and fruits. Where space and lay of the land permit, these cellars are dug into a hill and then lined with brick, stone, or concrete block. Dirt-floored or insulated basement rooms-less picturesque but probably more numerous-are also traditional.

What can a root cellar do for you? Simply this: make it possible for you to enjoy fresh endive in December; tender, savory Chinese cabbage in January; juicy apples in February; crisp carrots in March; and sturdy, unsprayed potatoes in April-all without boiling a jar, blanching a vegetable, or filling a freezer bag. A root cellar can save you time, money, and supplies. How? For starters, our gas and electric bills were lower because I was not heating two-gallon kettles of water for canning, I was stuffing less into the freezer, and I didn't need to buy new jar lids or freezer bags.

Storage vegetables needn't be limited to those old standbys: carrots, potatoes, and turnips. With a really well-planned root cellar program, fresh tomatoes, tender dandelion shoots, nuts, pears, sweet potatoes, and even cantaloupes can be preserved. Even if you must buy some produce, you'll find prices of storage vegetables are usually lowest in the fall. If squash is 25¢ a pound at a roadside stand in October, you can be sure it will cost much more than that at the market in January.

More important, it is good to be able to provide for yourself, to be prepared for the winter through your own skill and forethought with your own home-grown produce. If you like to choose your food with care and live simply and self-reliantly, perhaps root cellaring is for you.

Root Cellar Basics

There are three basic conditions a root cellar should provide. The closer you come to matching these ideal conditions in your vegetable-storage area, the better your vegetables will keep.

Humidity: High humidity is essential to effective root cellar storage. Most root crops and leafy vegetables keep best in humidity of 90 to 95%. Providing plenty of moisture helps prevent these foods from shriveling.

You can achieve the necessary humidity level in a root cellar three ways. First, in stall a dirt floor, which will retain more natural moisture than one made of concrete or stone. We recommend spreading gravel on packed earth. This helps keep feet dry when the ground gets really damp. Should the storage area need more moisture, you can supply it by sprinkling the gravel with water, which-because of the large surface area-will evaporate readily and fill the air with moisture.