Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Remembering the joys of root-cellaring

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Remembering the joys of root-cellaring
  • Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 06:23:57 -0600


Mrs. Restino's Root Cellars
Remembering the joys of root-cellaring
by Susan Restino
http://www.countrylife.net/servlets/sfs?t=contentFeatureArticle&i=953568
555281&b=953568555281&c=Default&l=0&customerID=guest&FormID=0&id
=1065202674631

The first year we lived on our farm in Cape Breton all winter, we hastily
built a root cellar to store food in the winter. It was actually three
metal barrels buried on their sides in a little hill. In front of the
barrels was a small ditch to stand in to get stuff out. In two barrels were
vegetables, and in the other were apples. They were separated because
apples give off a gas which causes roots to sprout. There were planks on
top of the ditch to keep snow out. Snow piled up that winter. Each time I
went out to replenish our supplies, the first job was to find the root
cellar. At first the vent pipes were a dead giveaway. Then one morning,
they too were covered. As winter progressed, the distance from the surface
of the snow to the bottom of the ditch also got deeper. Once a week, I dug
my way down to the root cellar, at an incline so I could climb back up
again carrying a bucket of vegetables. At the bottom it was always like a
miracle to find the precious food, unharmed by the terrible cold around us.
They were so beautiful, like jewels in the clean white snow: carrots,
turnips, potatoes, beets and apples. So fresh and delicious, juicy when cut
into and flavorful on the dinner table.

After a couple years we found the barrel arrangement was too small for the
amount of stuff we wanted to put away. We decided to dig out a room on top
of the 50 foot bank below our cabin. We even went so far as to drive stakes
in the ground, but that was where it stopped. Then one spring morning my
husband noticed the local back hoe operator up at the end of the driveway
waiting for the highway department to deliver some culverts. He went up to
say hello, and in no time at all the back hoe zipped down the driveway and
dug us a tremendous hole, between the four neat little stakes. My husband
lined the hole in the bank with logs, covered them with planks and roofing
and built an insulated door into the hillside. Then he piled the earth back
on top of the root cellar and when the grass grew back over it was
completely hidden. To get to it you went down a little path cut in the
bank, and there was the door.

There was plenty of space in the new root cellar. My husband built bins for
potatoes, turnips, carrots and beets. We hung cabbages up by their roots.
He put in shelves for my jars of canned fruits, jellies and pickles. And
there was a whole separate section for apples. I thought it was perfect. My
husband was pleased too. The one who didn't like it was our ten year old
daughter who was often sent to the root cellar to get whatever we needed.
What she did not like about this root cellar was the Daddy Long Legs which
proliferated for some reason and delighted in jumping off the low ceiling
and landing on her head when she went in there. She was much too grown-up
to actually complain about them, but she really didn't like going down
there. So she was glad when, a few years later, we built a proper house
with root cellar space in the basement.

Not every basement is suited to root cellaring. Ours was, mainly by virtue
of having a dirt floor so that the vegetables stayed cool and damp in the
winter. Our basement was also unheated, an important feature. The best
temperature for root storage is barely above freezing, 35°F or 5°C,
with humidity at about 90%. If the temperature drops below freezing, roots
will spoil. If on the other hand the temperature in the root cellar rises,
the roots think it's spring and began to shrivel up and sprout leaves. This
doesn't do anything for the flavor of the vegetables. What you really want
in a root cellar is cool and dark and damp. No wonder the Daddy Long Legs
like it so much down there.

The summer our daughter was 13, she proudly took over the job of putting
the garden into the root cellar. She knew exactly how to do it. She dug all
the potatoes one sunny afternoon in October. She laid them out on the hills
as she dug them, and then took them by a wheelbarrow to a dark shed where
she spread them out to dry for several days. She sorted them into three
categories. First, the ones which were damaged or too small would be used
right away or fed to animals. Second, the biggest and best were saved in
the root cellar in a special box until spring. The third category was
hopefully most of the potatoes. They were piled in fish crates in the root
cellar. They were piled loose because potatoes and turnips and beets do
better that way, but we found that carrots keep better packed in sand. The
sand should be fresh every year, and slightly damp. Packing carrots was an
art; they were laid in rows, not touching one another, and then covered
with sand in layers, like lasagna.

There were other vegetables from the garden harvested at the same time but
which were not kept in the root cellar. These included onions, garlic, and
all sorts of winter squashes. They needed to be kept in a drier
environment, such as a cool dark storage room where they would not freeze.
We used to braid the onion tops together and hang them in the woodshed
until it got really cold. Then I hung them in the pantry which was always
cool. The pumpkins and squashes migrated all over the house, from pillar to
post. I used them up as the winter progressed, in soups and breads and
various dishes. The main thing was to keep an eye on them because when they
begin to rot they go very fast, leaving a big wet mess. If they were stored
out of sight they were more likely to be forgotten. Fortunately, they were
beautiful, so in the fall there were always clusters and rows of squash
around our house.

All this is in the past now. Since the year 2000, my husband and I have
moved to Victoria, British Columbia. We've bought a large old character
house with small yard and no basement. We buy our vegetables at the
supermarket or the farmers' markets like everybody else. But I'm beginning
to think about that. Last year, we stored about 50 lbs. of organic carrots
in clean sand in a box in the workshop. It doesn't get very cold in
Victoria; they kept well. We could it dig a root cellar under the north end
of the house, and store Yukon Gold potatoes, organically grown, and they
would keep much better than in well-lit supermarkets. Where there's a will
there's always a way. Root cellars forever!




  • [Livingontheland] Remembering the joys of root-cellaring, Tradingpost, 10/06/2005

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page