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Julie Wolf wrote:
Stephanie Naftal wrote:My friend in the UK swears by nematodes for slugs. She says she finally had a slug free season. I am in the boat of trying to find some in the US - the one company I found said, nematodes don’t kill slugs. Weird.
When I did research a few years ago, I found that this Nemotode slug solution was only available in the UK not the US. For a while I made the homemade slugoo and tried yeast,sugar,flour traps. but I finally just ended up using Slugo type products with the non toxic just iron ingredients. Used in spring and fall is prevents new populations and leads to less slugs.
Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:When you say "crawl space", how tall is it? Maybe it's because I'll soon turn 73 but you may tire of crawling on your hands & knees to retrieve your potatoes. If you really want to use a crawl space that way, you may want to have a firm floor and get a dolly or 2 or 3 dollies with ropes so you can pull your stuff out when you want it. If it is possible, you may want to enlarge that crawl space deeper, with a door you can access from the house. Of course, you don't want to weaken your foundations either by digging close to a wall or much lower than the foundations.
If your garage is insulated, or if you have an area of the garage or a basement you can close off, or an attic you can get quick access to, those may be much better options. Bins built with 1/4"wire and a lid will offer the protection against mice that are sure to get interested in your wonderful goodies!
Your onions, garlic, sweet potatoes will fare much better in a closet, inside the house. Sweet potatoes in particular just cannot handle the cold.
Another benefit to using spaces that are in areas of the house most travelled is that your stuff will actually get used, whereas if you have to wade in the snow or crawl under your house/ deck to fetch something, you will find you are not that hungry after all, and perhaps quick mashed potatoes from a cardboard box will have more appeal. Ask me how I know.
The University of Maine suggests 3 different types of storage: cold, cool and warm, by ideal temperature and humidity.
https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/4135e/
Jay Angler wrote:Yes, sticking a thermometer down there would be a great start.
Ideally, a root cellar should be close to 32F, but not drop below that for ideal vegetable storage. If I was storing canning, I wouldn't risk it that cold as it's one thing for a carrot to freeze and another thing for a glass jar to.
There are veggies - like onions - who like it a bit warmer, so ideal root cellars have colder zones and warmer zones.
You'll likely have more consistent temps on the north wall. My parents house had a walled off area that was insulated from the rest of the basement, but not from the foundation wall and it did the job unless we had a protracted cold snap. You want a quick project, but even recycled bubble wrap draped down to "trap" the cold of a north wall could get you a cool spot without it freezing. Ideally, you would check the temp first thing in the morning for a while to see what the trends are and how it tracks with outdoor temps.
Rats and mice will be attracted to the smell of fruit and veg and they can chew through plastic, so the thicker the better or look for metal buckets/tubs. The tubs themselves need airflow, so consider using hardware cloth to make mouse-proof lids or drill small holes to allow airflow. That said, last year I used buckets with potatoes layered in sawdust inside a broken freezer inside an insulated out-building and they lasted far longer than any other system I've tried in the past. We generally get only a little below freezing weather.
I think it would definitely be possible to do this as a quick project. Friends I know who used to have a crawl space did get a pair of movers dolly's and fashioned a "cart" so they didn't actually have to wreck their knees crawling on concrete.