I was reading another post about
root cellars, and had a lot to say about storage conditions and varieties, so I thought I'd give this its own
thread, instead of hijacking that one.
We live in Saskatchewan, Canada, which is zone 2/3, with extremely cold winters (we normally hit -40 at some point for a bit) that effectively start around Halloween, and end in late March. It is also quite dry here - I think our area gets around 14" per year, and the air is rarely humid except for brief periods in mid summer, usually on hot days just before or after a rainstorm. We have a 90 day growing season (plus or minus - this year, our first frost was almost three weeks later than expected). Harvest is normally in early September for frost-tender plants, and late September to early October for
roots.
Our acreage came with a farmhouse, which was built in the 1950's. There is an actual dirt-floored root cellar built into the cement basement, on the north-west corner of the house, and shaded from the west by
trees and bushes. It is around 8x10' with low wooden walls (maybe 18 inches or 2' high) along each long side to form dirt-floored bins. We've also added a shelf on one wall for the eggs. Even in high summer, the root cellar tends to be quite cool. If we sprinkle some
water on the floor, it drops a few more degrees, as well. We've been experimenting with storing food there since our first garden here, in 2011. This is all observational, and not the best observation, at that - I have no idea what the actual temperature or humidity down there is at any given point. Our system is based on observing things in the moment, and adjusting conditions if there is a simple way to do so.
We've found that not only do different crops need different storage approaches, but even different varieties of the same crop may need different conditions. Also, some varieties simply don't store well, no matter what we do, and some varieties store exceptionally well, no matter what we do. So the first hurdle, for us, has been finding crops and crop varieties that store well under our conditions. We don't have a lot of control over temperature, as until this fall, the window to the cellar was painted shut (now, we can adjust the temperature cooler by cracking that window open a sliver, though we haven't experimented with that much yet), but we could adjust humidity fairly easily by sprinkling water on the floor or putting things into plastic bins or bags. Here are the crops and varieties we've done well with, and our notes on their storage:
Apples: we've planted several varieties of storage
apple, but only the Honeycrisp apples are currently bearing. We store them in the perforated Ziploc vegetable bags on one end of the root cellar, away from everything else. So far, this has worked really well (this is the second year with the Honeycrisp apples). The apples were harvested in late September, sorted for anything that was damaged or bruised (I made those into
apple crisps right away), and the sound ones were rinsed for bugs, bagged up, and put in the cellar. Last year, we stored them in 5-gallon buckets, but that was not optimal, as the bottom ones eventually got too humid and rotted, while the top ones shriveled, and there was no easy way to manage the humidity for the whole
bucket. Honeycrisps are supposed to last 4-6 months in storage; last year, we got around 3 months out of them. This year, we expect to do much better, as the apples are beautiful, plump, and firm right now (two months after harvest), with no signs of shriveling or spoilage. Store-bought apples will stay reasonably fresh in the root cellar for a while, though we have to check on them frequently, as when one starts to go, they pretty much all do at once. We've tried storing apples from others down there, but apples are really variable in how well they keep, so now we don't bother unless we know exactly what kind of apples they are.
Beets: We grow Cylindra beets, mostly because they are nicer for us to scrub and chop; we have also grown Detroit Dark Red. Both seem to last a few months in the root cellar, but they are picky about humidity. If things get too humid, the tops rot and get slimy, and the beets get a covering of white mold. If the beet itself feels firm, we've been known to cut away the mold and cook it up anyhow; this is probably not recommended, however. If things are not humid
enough, beets shrivel up very quickly. We put them, unwashed, in shallow Rubbermaid containers with a covering that we can adjust (open or close) to manage humidity. Beets need to be monitored fairly closely, but if you get the humidity right, they are a great root cellar vegetable. We ate beets from the cellar last night, and they are still lovely and firm, around two months after harvest. We have noticed that the yellow or golden beets do not store as well as the red ones (we've tried a few different golden beets, and none have stored well for us - now, we just eat them fresh).
Cabbage: We don't grow our own cabbage, but have bought or been gifted larger amounts of cabbage at various times, and put it down in the cellar. Cabbage seems to get slimy if things are very humid, so we put them in burlap sacks by the potatoes. They haven't lasted as long for us as most other things - maybe a couple of months - but we don't know if they were storage varieties or not. Also, with the way we stored them, after a while, the outer leaves would get dried out, discolored, and papery fairly quickly, making it look like the cabbage had gone bad. However, when we peeled off the first few layers, there was perfectly sound, tasty cabbage underneath. Occasionally those cabbages have been chock full of little green caterpillars, which also apparently root cellar very well, as they were quite alive when we cut into the cabbage (blech).
Carrots: We grow Nantes Coreless or Danvers Half Long, and they store equally well. Like the beets, they are a bit picky about humidity, and tend to shrivel/get slimy really fast if they don't like the humidity you give them. Carrots normally last a month or two longer than the beets under our storage conditions, so we make a point of using more beets early in the winter, and saving the carrots for later. I think carrots prefer things a bit cooler than our root cellar; my mother has stored washed garden carrots in a ziploc bag in the fridge for over seven months, but I think the longest we've managed in the root cellar was about five (with them becoming too shriveled / bitter to eat sometime in late February or early March, if we haven't used them by then).
Eggs: We store our unwashed eggs in the root cellar all summer (we don't get that many eggs in the winter, so we just eat them as they come). We worried about them getting off flavors, as it is musty down there, but it hasn't been a problem. We've had them sit down there for several months and still be fine to eat. I don't know what the limit would be, as we make a point of rotating them so the oldest ones get eaten first. Storing them down there gives us enough space to make sure we have a good supply well into winter, even if the hens aren't laying (or aren't laying much) for lack of light.
Onions: We mostly grow the yellow Spanish type onions from sets. We've also tried the red ones, but found they don't store nearly as well, so if we grow them, we use them up first. We found that onions don't like our root cellar at all - it's too humid. They prefer a cool, dry spot. After curing them (often on a sheet on the living room floor, as we pull them as close to first frost as we can leave it) for a couple of weeks (until the necks are papery and dry), we put them in baskets in the spare room, with the furnace vent closed and the door shut. If we've planted enough, they usually last until the chives are well up in April/May. You have to be diligent about picking out and using the ones that sprout, though.
Potatoes: We've never found a potato that didn't store well in the root cellar. They don't like it as humid as the other roots, though, so we store them in burlap sacks, rather than plastic, and keep the root cellar humidity about at the level they like (then adjust everything else higher as necessary, using the covered plastic bin or ziploc baggie method, with extra water sprinkled in if necessary). We just harvest them, let them dry in the sun for the afternoon, brush off the excess dirt, pick out any that are damaged, bag them up, and put them downstairs, unwashed. We could probably store them loose in the bins, but with the window letting light in, we prefer to bag them up. If we've planted enough, we can be eating them right up until the next planting time (May), though sometimes they get bitter toward the end (we haven't figured out why - it might be the varieties we grow, or it might be the storage conditions).
Rutabagas: we've only grown them ourselves one year, and most had some degree of worm damage. The damaged ones still lasted a couple of months, and the undamaged ones a bit longer, but we ate all the undamaged ones before any rotted, so I'm not sure how long they would have lasted. We stored them, unwashed and not waxed, in bins like the carrots and beets.
Squash: Squash are with the onions - they don't like the root cellar. Again, it's too humid for them, and they tend to go mushy very quickly. With squash, the variety matters a lot - some hardly store at all, and some seem to last basically forever (ie a year or more). Maximas seem to store best for us (our season is too short for most c. moschata squash, though I hear they are the best keepers). C. pepo squash don't generally store well for us, with the glaring exception of spaghetti squash - we found one that was still edible over a year after it had been harvested! We keep the squash in the cool spare room with the onions, if we have enough space; overflow ends up all over our house, including the kitchen counter and the
coffee table in the living room. Depending on the variety (especially the spaghetti squash), even the relative abuse of our warm living room doesn't slow them down by much.
We make a point of eating the squash in the order it tends to rot. We normally grow New England Sugar Pie pumpkins (c. pepo), which are normally done by the end of December (sometimes sooner), Red Kuri squash (c. maxima) which usually lasts until March, and Spaghetti Squash, which generally lasts until we eat it all or
feed it to the
chickens to make room for the next crop. We've also had good luck with the Iran squash, though they grew too big for us, so were hard to use. This year, we also grew Sweet Meat squash and Mandan squash, and both look like they will end up being good keepers, as well. One of the big tricks with squash seems to be making sure the stem is completely dry before putting them anywhere cool. The rot often seems to start at the stem, and spread from there. This is especially a big deal with the c. maximas, which have a thick, fleshy stem; the c. pepo squash mostly have a hard, woody stem that dries quite quickly. Also of note, most squash doesn't ripen on the vine for us, as our season is too short; we pick them green and let them ripen in the house. This doesn't seem to be a problem with anything that has grown to full size before harvest, but the smaller ones seem to rot more quickly, so we try to eat the little squashes (of any variety) before anything else, as soon as they ripen.
Of all the things we've tried, only potatoes, onions, and a couple types of squash last through until the asparagus is up in May, but almost everything is still good in December, and we regularly serve root-cellar carrots and beets at Christmas. Of
course, this will be different for everybody, depending on when you harvest, how cold and humid your cellar is, and what grows in your area, but I'd be willing to bet that (for instance) potatoes will last longer than beets for most people.
We love our root cellar, and we grow a lot more vegetables than we otherwise would because of it. We don't really have time to do a ton of canning or dehydrating, so just digging things up and hauling them downstairs is ideal for us. It does require regular checking, though, especially later in the season, to make sure that things that start to go bad don't ruin the whole bin, but that takes a few minutes a week, and is easy to do when you're down there getting veggies for supper.
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