Permies Poll: Do you maintain a root cellar?

A root cellar is loosely defined as "an underground or earth-sheltered structure designed to store vegetables, fruits, and canned goods at low temperatures and high humidity to prevent spoiling and freezing."






I will admit, I don't know a lot about root cellars. Please share your system in the comments for all of us to learn from!

I have a small room in my basement that I use, but I do not have anything I am satisfied calling a root cellar.

We have the obligatory "Fraidy-hole" storm shelter here in Oklahoma, for when rotary weather stops being a spectator sport and gets serious.  We squeezed a little more out of the budget and bought what amounts to an oversized unit for two people and a dog.  It's nominally rated for "12 People," though I would want the other 11 to be very good friends.  It's big enough for a set of shelves and a stack of milk crates for cabbage and potatoes, and a few apples.  So, I guess we're "stacking functions."

We buried ours, although it's rated for 1/3 exposure for critical storm performance.  It has two vents, so we put a 4" PVC DWV tube for a convection ventilation system.  Doesn't freeze in the winter, but the steel door, set at a 40º angle, does tend to bake in the sun, even though the rest of the structure is under at least 10" of soil.  I'm going to build a shed roof over it all this summer and put an insulated door on the front.  Should work quite well.  

My "cellar" is a roughly 7.5 x 3.5 foot room made by building two concrete block walls against the outside of the foundation wall, hammering a hole through to the basement, and capping it with a concrete slab that became a porch. It has two walls and a floor in contact with the earth and two walls the other side of which are my basement and a flimsy door that admits a lot of temperature and air. It stays cool and humid but isn't perfect. It also has an old sand-point well contaminated by lead, and the admittance hole from the new drilled well, and some of our water-works like filter and pressure tank. I keep some potatoes, onions, garlic, canned goods, and most dominantly -- jars of seeds in it. There are mice though and it's a constant battle.

Maybe there could be a poll response for "I wish!" Because I wish I had a root cellar. But, my ground is wet and digging by hand is hard.

I wish, because with our being on a rock with a cave system (Missouri Ozarks) all around us, it's just not doable.

Last vote in apple poll was on April 14, 2026