Harvest Room

If you are considering building a homestead, then one of the things you need to give consideration to is a harvest room. One room specifically designated for the preparation and storage of food.

A harvest room was a simple necessity for yesterday's farms. Yet they have all but disappeared today. And today's modern kitchen is ill equipment for canning or dehydrating a wonderful garden harvest. There simply isn't room or the proper equipment for doing it.

I thought I would put together some thoughts on a harvest room for those that are interested. Despite my searching, I have not been able to locate anything on the internet about a harvest room.

First, remember that most of the harvest will occur in late summer when outdoor temperatures are at or near their zenith. So you'll want your harvest room to be cool. That may mean a room with windows or a room with flow through ventilation.

You can take advantage of some of the equipment in your kitchen such as the sink and dishwasher so you may wish to have the room adjacent to the kitchen. If you wish to be off the grid then you can sterilize the jars by boiling either over an open fire outside, over a wood stove or in a Rumford (1) fireplace. Either way, being close to the kitchen will be a plus.

You'll need plenty of room to store empty canning jars, lids and rings. So cabinets will be important. Counter space will be another prime consideration. Since canning requires heating a pressure canner (the safest method) you will need a source of heat. Again, you may wish to take advantage of your kitchen stove or you might consider adding a unit specifically for your harvest room. This could be a handy addition particularly if you have a large family or frequent guests. A nice place to cook without heating up the rest of the house.

(1) You might even considering building a Rumford fire place in the harvest room along with a bread oven. A Rumford fireplace is a tall and shallow fireplace that was pretty common in early American. Also referred to as a working fireplace or cooking fireplace, it's one of the easiest designs to cook in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumford_fireplace

And don't forget the necessary fireplace equipment like the fireplace crane.

You'll also prefer to have easy access from the harvest room to your root cellar where much of your canned foods will be stored.

Whether you combine the functionality into your kitchen or decide to go with two separate rooms, you will want the space for canning and dehydrating equipment along with a surplus of storage just for harvest activities.

Just one more thing to consider when you build the homestead of your dreams
-rick/moderator, wilderness-survival.net

When showing all my various home plans to people they always comment that I made the pantry awful big. To me a pantry isn't just for a few cans and boxes of cereal. It is for preparation of food for storage and the storage of all my canning supplies, seeds and drying. I want mine big enough to accomodate my deep freeze and handle a dehydrator and pressure cooker to keep the noise out of the main kitchen. I guess I didn't know what it was called but what I really want is called a harvest room!

How does a harvest room differ from a root cellar?

Deep freeze in the pantry sounds mighty smart. 

That reminds me of another issue ... for which I will start a new thread ...

it sounds like a harvest room isn't neccesarily at the temp that a good root cellar needs to be. I need a place to ferment and age my wine too and that can't be done in the ideal root cellar temps.

Designing thermal convection into a harvest room can help to keep your produce from excessive heat.  An opening low on the natural shady side, and an opening high on the sunny side of a room will naturally move the cool air in and the hot air out.

Sue

around here in the summer the breeze feels like somebody put a hair dryer on you so I don't think that would work in this climate. I can imagine my grandparents in SD could use that though.

Actually, I've read that you can lower the temperature of the air coming in from the cool side.  It's not going to be refrigeration, of course, but you can improve the odds.

The first thing is design, which is to make sure the air-intake side is always shaded.

Then you add shrubbery to shade the air-intake, maybe add a little grass or lawn beyond it, and if you have a source of moisture (even waste water) to keep that area cool, it all helps.

I saw a half-underground root cellar at some sort of museum place in Oregon, near Bend, I think, and it was noticeably cooler inside than out.  Like the pioneers, you do the best you can with what you've got.

Sue

I'd never heard of a harvest room....They sort of merge into each other don't they - harvest room - pantry/root cellar - kitchen  ?

I guess the optimum is like a dirty kitchen for prep and then kitchen for preservation and cellar/pantry for storage....I think the word I'm searching for is scullery. Is that something different again?

Here in the US, I understand that most typical homes are bigger than in other countries. Though I have never owned a home that was big enough to have  specific room to harvest plants/foods.

Homes with cellars might be perfect for having a root cellar though I would want a harvest room close to the kitchen.

I feel an outside work station would be perfect for a harvest room.  And a great excuse to have an outside kitchen.

Put in a work bench with a sink attached to a garden hose.  Then this could be called a Harvest room.

Great for greens that require a lot of cleaning.

The harvest room is something I would appreciate.   As it is, we have a room for food storage in the basement that I am currently giving a good cleaning to. We also have a large kitchen …maybe 14 ft X 22 ft.  I haven’t measured it lately.  

Rodale published a book called "Build Your Harvest Kitchen".  I have a copy here in the stack of books next to the bed, at the moment.  It discusses several aspects of creating a large prep kitchen/pantry.  It contains lots of practical advice regarding framing, electrical wiring and plumbing (though all from a US, or at least North American, perspective), and some on layout considerations for various uses, as well.  Some of the electrical and plumbing advice is probably no longer code compliant, but it is worth a read if you find a copy.

I am aiming to have a summer kitchen (outdoors, though screened, as part of my garage/shop, all as-yet theoretical), with a separate deep pantry/root cellar in the house basement.  But, having the two functions colocated or adjacent would certainly have its advantages.  My rationale for the separated plan is that most of the "putting up" happens in the summer and fall, when weather is warmer and the extra heat may not be welcome in the house.  Also, some messes are probably better made outside the house (large scale fish preservation or livestock butchering, for example).  Preserved food is more likely to be used during the winter and early spring, so having that readily to hand, without needing to tramp outside through the blowing snow, would be more convenient, and it will be easier to keep and eye on the condition of things like winter squash, potatoes and apples if they are in the basement/cellar.

Regarding Nancy's "scullery", the word seems to have two common usages, as far as I can ascertain.  One is as a word for a serious prep kitchen for large scale processing and preserving; this is the more modern usage (at least in the US), and seems to be Nancy's usage here, too (so, perhaps it's the same over the water).  The second usage, now slightly old fashioned, is a space where dishes, pots and pans are cleaned and scrap food is discarded (or collected for the pigs), etc.  A clean-up space, kept separate from the kitchen space to minimize unsanitary cross-contamination.  Probably really only ever a "thing" in large households, with lots of kitchen staff (and scullery maids).  Very much a "downstairs" space.  This from an amateur "Mr. Language Person" (pace Dave Barry), so take it under advisement.

I'm toying with the idea of converting our byre to a berry-prep area if my plans for growing berries more commercially take off. It would be a space for cleaning fruit and preparing jams, cordials, juice, dried fruit etc.
I guess it would certainly need clean water for washing and adding to some fruit for cooking, a heat source for cooking things down. Electricity supply - I'm thinking of investing in a freeze drier as being more nutrient friendly. A cool space for keeping the fruit before processing, although I'm hoping to do without electric refrigeration...What else will I need?

I remember reading something about this is an old book from the 1940's called "The Have More Plan". I think they called it a harvest kitchen.