Enjoy Fresh Food in Winter

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Raising or buying storage crops also can give you a new appreciation for seasonal eating. In spring and summer, we enjoy the fresh, delicate produce at its best, but we don’t chase after peas and strawberries when their season is done. Rather, we savor the earthy, hearty flavors of carrots and apples, beets and rutabagas, onions and potatoes.

Many gardeners tell me they too feel the impulse to ‘put something by’ when summer wanes. Perhaps the squirreling instinct is rooted in human nature. People have been making use of natural cold storage for centuries. By comparison, our more-recent dependence on outside power sources to produce, transport and preserve food is but a moment in time.

There’s a deep satisfaction in acting on that impulse, in finding we can provide for our families by keeping food we’ve grown. All the arts of gardening — thoughtful planning, thorough soil preparation, timely planting and careful harvest — come together in this time-honored art of keeping the goods from our gardens, giving us gardeners yet another reason to exult in our generous provisioning.

Whether you start with a cold drawer, a garden trench or an enclosed room, may you find great pleasure, and good eating, in practicing natural cold storage.

Nancy Bubel is co-author with her husband, Mike, of Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables. You can order it from www.MotherEarthNews.com or Nancy also is a former editor with Mother Earth News and author of The New Seed-Starters Handbook, Rodale Press.

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