What's in your cold cellar today?

I'm starting this during a cold spell. It's too cold and dark to garden.... but maybe all you wonderful permies could inspire me by posting pictures or just describing, what is in your cold cellar today?

My today is Feb 6th, and the best I've got is a cool area that isn't sufficiently vermin proof to have anything that isn't canned. However, last week I thawed some "pre-jam" that I froze last year and made 8 x 500ml jars of grape jam - yes, a jam, not a jelly!

Your "today" is likely to be different, but no matter. What have you put away?

Our little cold corner under the basement stairs has mostly potatoes, several different varieties that we love and grow. It's warmer than I like in there so there are some sprouts starting. Not yet little spuds! I'll get some blankets on you SAP.

Also in the cold room are onions, alas commercial ones since we have a hard time getting them to grow here. But I bought a bunch of 10 lb bags at $5 each in season, and then spread them on a rack with a small fan on them for 10 days. That way they dry down properly and don't start to mold/rot. Haven't lost more than a couple.

Our other "root cellar" is the basement fridge, which has a good stock of carrots and beets that will last us until we start harvesting fresh ones next summer.

There are a couple of bags of sliced and dried crabapples, which my dogs love. I'll give a bunch to a neighbour who rehabilitates rescue horses; they're crazy over them.

Edit: I forgot to mention Kabocha squash! We only have half a dozen left; a lady we know buys them a few at a time for $5 each. Pity they're a hybrid and I can't save seeds.

Yes, potatoes and onions …and not too much of either.

My cellar is the least stocked it’s ever been at this time of year because last year's growing season was so terrible. I have potatoes, garlic, three big squash (not pictured), country wine, canned goods, and most importantly — seeds.

Our cellar is a cold room built on the shadow side of the house, without a window.
The tile floor is directly on the soil, so it's a bit moist, good for making cheese, less good for cardbord boxes...
We have a lot of fruit compote, next year I'll be more patient and cook it longer to make jam. Compote is great as filling for baking pies though
I processed the pumpkins and preserved them as mash in jars. Next year I'll just keep them as pumpkin I think.
There's still some tomatoesauce left from last years bountiful harvest.
We've made country wines and liqueurs, the cherry wine was great! The others need to age some more.
The cellar room is next to the kitchen, and since it's so cool in the cellar room, our fridge is in there as well.
And a cabinet full of processing utensils, but maybe that will change in the future.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Our little cold corner under the basement stairs has mostly potatoes, several different varieties that we love and grow.

Also in the cold room are onions, alas commercial ones since we have a hard time getting them to grow here. But I bought a bunch of 10 lb bags at $5 each in season, and then spread them on a rack with a small fan on them for 10 days. That way they dry down properly and don't start to mold/rot. Haven't lost more than a couple.

Our other "root cellar" is the basement fridge, which has a good stock of carrots and beets that will last us until we start harvesting fresh ones next summer.

HELLO: I ran across an ideal to store veggies vertically 3 or 4 years ago and copied it out of the Sketch Up Repository, pasted in word, and turned into the attached PDF file. You can literally make these any size and height, however, instead of making all of the trays it would be easier if you could find trays that let ventilation flow through and then size the structure to those trays. See or download the attachment.

What a great thread!

I have 8-10 pounds of apples, evercrisp is the variety.  They maintain flavor and crispness seemingly indefinitely.

Garlic I grew.  

Onions from a local farmer, I over estimated my need.  They are getting close to sprouting, rotting, turning soft.  I will be giving some away!

A few winter squash, potatoes a neighbor grew.

Frozen August tomatoes and nevtarines.

Cilantro pesto, parsley pesto, also in the freezer.
Dried nettle, dried spinach, dried mushrooms.

Cranberry jalapeno chutney.

And more than half of a 5 pound wheel of cheese.

About 15 pounds total of kamut and einkorn, 4 gallons rabbitbrush honey


I am going to try drying crabapples this fall.

Jay Angler wrote:I'm starting this during a cold spell. It's too cold and dark to garden.... but maybe all you wonderful permies could inspire me by posting pictures or just describing, what is in your cold cellar today?

My today is Feb 6th, and the best I've got is a cool area that isn't sufficiently vermin proof to have anything that isn't canned. However, last week I thawed some "pre-jam" that I froze last year and made 8 x 500ml jars of grape jam - yes, a jam, not a jelly!

Your "today" is likely to be different, but no matter. What have you put away?

Well done, Jay! Grape jam. Yummy.
Actually, I do not have a cold cellar but I thought I could give some folks a different idea on having "a cold but not too cold area":
We have a 2 car garage attached to the house. I felt it was a waste of room to have all this space and use it only for the 2 cars when I could put shelves on one of the long walls. [the one that has a common wall with the house]
Especially that the ceiling was well insulated. So I also insulated the rest of this 2 car garage, built 5 long shelves and started stacking stuff there. [they are a bit narrow [14"] , but I need enough room to walk alongside my car.]
The garage opens to the west, which isn't very good because the dominant winds also come from the West. But so far, with the help of an intermittent portable heater, and making sure that the garage is only open for the few seconds it takes to go in or out, the temperature has not dipped below 40F, even when it was 0F outside.
I have not figured out how much it is costing us to use the electric heater at night, but I'd like to fix that. I turn it off when the temperature reaches 50F and back on when it dips lower than 40F. It would make more sense to plug a thermostat so I don't have to monitor it so closely. I could probably hang heavy tapestry like material in front of these shelves to help preserve the heat  from the house, since there is a common wall there, and forego the heater, but I kinda like to see my jars. They sell some moving blankets and I have 2 or3 that could work well...
There are categories of things that can go there, tightly closed in glass jars as they won't freeze: Sugar, salt and flour, nuts, jams. I didn't put shelled beans there this year, but because they are dry, dehydrated, it would be fine to put them there too.
Any kind of booze/liquor we make ourselves: [Alcohol freezes at much lower temperatures] potatoes and squash [although the squash and the pumpkins are pretty much gone south now].. Sunchoke and carrots in a bucket of damp sand, and covered loosely. Sauerkraut could be kept there too since it has a fair amount of salt, so the crock wouldn't break, but it was a big crock, so I decided not to tempt the devil and I canned the sauerkraut and took it down the basement.
Glass jars of fruit and vegetables are in the basement: they are more risky if it freezes hard.
There are 2 small window to the South which give me all the light I need [and more].
I also keep some other jars that don't fit in the basement, especially the empty ones..
The garage doors close fairly tight or we could not do that.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Our other "root cellar" is the basement fridge, which has a good stock of carrots and beets that will last us until we start harvesting fresh ones next summer.

What temperature do you keep this fridge set at?  I have an extra old fridge I could put in the basement and use for that purpose, but keeping carrots in my kitchen fridge they only last about a month before some start rotting.  I've never kept beets long enough to start them rotting -- they become coveted chicken treats before then.  (Carrots are only valuable to the hens for any bugs they might attract.)

Donna Lynn wrote:

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Our other "root cellar" is the basement fridge, which has a good stock of carrots and beets that will last us until we start harvesting fresh ones next summer.

What temperature do you keep this fridge set at?  I have an extra old fridge I could put in the basement and use for that purpose, but keeping carrots in my kitchen fridge they only last about a month before some start rotting.  I've never kept beets long enough to start them rotting -- they become coveted chicken treats before then.  (Carrots are only valuable to the hens for any bugs they might attract.)

It's a standard fridge, and we keep it at about 4`C, which is the usual recommended fridge temperature.

Our carrots and beets last 8-9 months because we put in a lot of work to prepare them for long-term storage. It's all about vigorous initial cleaning and ongoing moisture control.

Processing from the field: all roots and tops are cut out completely -- this is where rot will start. They are very thoroughly scrubbed to remove all soil. All root hairs are removed -- they will rot.

Then they are stored in large plastic bags with several paper towels that serve to control the humidity level. These are monitored, and paper towels replaced if they become saturated. If the bag stays wet, rot will set in.

I would also add: weird, sketchy or damaged carrots go in the "use first" bag. They're perfectly edible, but they won't keep long and when they go sideways they can take half a bag with them.

This system is proven over decades of experience. It works.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Then they are stored in large plastic bags with several paper towels that serve to control the humidity level. These are monitored, and paper towels replaced if they become saturated. If the bag stays wet, rot will set in.

Thank you.  I use paper towels in with greens (washed or not) to absorb moisture in the fridge... it does help them last longer.  I am trying it now with cucumbers bought from the store to see if I can get those to last longer too.

Scrubbing and trimming before storage seem counter to much "advice" I've read or watched on keeping root crops good long term.  But since you've done it for so long successfully, it's worth a try!

I don't have one "cold area." That would not work well as some things (apples, potatoes, roots, maybe cabbages) like it very humid--so those things go in my root cellar. Other things want it dry. Onions I hang from my ceiling, where it isn't cool at all but I think I read they sprout (and rot) between 50 and 80 degrees or something, so maybe being high in a woodstove-warmed room actually fends off rot. I still can't store them beyond February, a moot point this year as as I ran out a good while ago--in part because so many rotted, maybe because the sets I found were nearly all oversized. In my root cellar now is the last few pounds of potatoes, shrivelly and sprouty, that I saved back after buying the first commercial potatoes in case I can't buy seed potatoes this spring since the US appears to be on the verge of a massive breakdown. Some years I have potatoes to eat and plant into spring, but my harvest was poor last year because of a drought that started in early June and extended till the middle of November. I also have my last few Goldrush apples in there--poor quality despite being my favorite apple because they never really matured, probably because of the drought. And some commercial apples a neighbor got free and is storing there, and one last bag of carrots I'm debating moving into the fridge. In my pantry I have some butternuts I'll need to use soon as they are nearing the end of their storage life, and a fair amount of sweet potatoes. The latter keep for many months at room temperature. They're all sprouting now which is fine by me as I'll want slips for myself and my friends. On the shelves on the other side are all manner of canned goods, jars with things like flour, seeds, nuts, dried fruits, and this is also where I store my seeds because it's dry and dark in my pantry. I do have carrots in the veggie bin of my fridge, and some things in the freezer atop the fridge as well as in the shared freezer at my neighbors. But I regard this as a luxury, as it's dependent on electricity--ours is off-grid solar which is reliable as long as no one comes to steal the parts but my neighbor's is grid-tied so may go down when the grid does.

Thanks for the attachment Jesse

What a great thread!  I still live in a 445sq. ft. apartment in the middle of a big city so, no cold room for me.  Then again, it's -18°F (-28°C) outside today with windchills of -36°F (-38°C).  I'm fine with the cold.  I call it free air-conditioning.

But, once I relocate, a root cellar is absolutely, 100% in my plans when I build my house.  I've designed it after an 1840s house I saw on YouTube that had a basement which then had steps leading down to a root cellar.  (See picture.)  I love that idea.  (And the woman who transformed (and filled) it with home preserves is absolutely brilliant and remarkable!)  

I love seeing folk's pictures and would love any and all advice, warnings, and recommendations.  Where I'll be living, it's a subtropical climate so too much heat and humidity in the summer.  (That's my compromise for the area.  I'm a heat wimp.)  I'd even like to have a little area for a bed to sleep on in the summer if the power goes out.