Anyone actually tried a barrel root cellar?

I'm thinking about building a simple "Root Cellar" out of a buried barrel, or two, or ten. Has anyone actually tried this? Why doesn't the stuff turn into slime due to lack of airflow? I know actual cellars need lots of airflow.

Especially, I want to store cabbage. How would cabbage do in one of these?

Hi Gilbert, we used an old freezer buried in the ground and that work very well, and I'm in zone 3 1/2 ( they tell me its zone 4 ... I know better!!)  any way we would put 2 bales of straw on top of the freezer, and we never had anything freeze

we stuck a piece of pvc up through the top for ventilation,   and I have never had luck storing cabbage in anything.... we make most of our cabbage into kraut

Gilbert;  Bury your barrel with the bottom cut out, that way you will get ground temps and humidity.  Two barrels welded together , open at the bottom, buried in the shade preferably with a roof . I just cover mine with an old stop sign.  Mine is 3 barrels deep, so I lower stuff down in with a styrofoam cooler .  I use mine as a cheese cave although I do store potato's there as well.  A three tier metal fruit basket works good also.