Build a Root Cellar: A Complete Guidebook

Enlarge Image Image Gallery “The Complete Root Cellar Book” provides 30 easy-to-follow illustrated plans for constructing these naturally cool storage spaces, including root cellar plans for condos, town homes and warm climates. You’ll also find more than 100 recipes — classics and new creations — for using your cellared food. How does Golden Puffed Potato Pudding or Maple Pecan Crumble Apple Pie sound? COVER: ROBERT ROSE INC.

Root cellars — a common feature of early American homes — are gaining new favor as food and energy prices surge, and also as homeowners discover how much better locally grown produce tastes. Whether you garden or buy in bulk at your local farmers market, you can enjoy fresh carrots, cabbage, beets, potatoes, apples, grapes and lots more year-round if you create a space with the right temperature and humidity. You can go so far as to make an insulated room in your basement — complete with ventilation controls — or you can simply start with a barrel buried in the ground.

No matter the type of root cellar you choose, The Complete Root Cellar Book by Steve Maxwell and Jennifer MacKenzie is a comprehensive guidebook that will help you construct and use these smart, money-saving structures. The authors contend that anyone, anywhere, can and should have a root cellar. “Root cellars help make the most of your food dollar by allowing you to stock up at low prices during seasonal harvests,” writes Maxwell, an award-winning home improvement author and MOTHER EARTH NEWS contributing editor. What’s more, according to Maxwell, “Root cellars offer a lifestyle ... an opportunity to cultivate traditional skills and hone gourmet insights in a way that is both fulfilling and globally responsible.”

With a root cellar, you can keep bushels of homegrown or local heritage varieties of vegetables (not available in supermarkets) in optimum condition for months at a time using little or no energy. Imagine taking just a few steps from your kitchen to gather ‘Italian Bassano’ beets or ‘Maiden’s Blush’ apples anytime you want to prepare them, all winter long.

True to its title, the book is both broad and specific in addressing design basics, construction methods, and food harvest, storage and preparation. The first half of the book provides 30 easy-to-follow illustrated plans for creating standard cold rooms, basement root cellars, stand-alone underground root cellars, and even root cellars for condos, town homes and warm climates. It also offers simple outdoor cellaring options such as the “trench silo” and “garbage can cellar.”