Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Uriel <uriel@nasalam.org>]

Where I grew up in SW Washington the water table was too high for 
cellars.  Instead, we had a room back in the wood shed that had walls 
about a food thick and filled with sawdust.  Even the door was filled 
with sawdust.  It worked quite well and kept various kinds of produce 
cool in the summer and protected in the winter.  My mother would put 
down surplus summertime eggs in water glass (sodium silicate) to keep 
through the winter.  Tomato plants would be pulled whole just before the 
first frost and hung upside down.  The tomatoes would continue to ripen 
through the fall and early winter.  Where I  now live in the Ozarks the 
ground is solid rock in places so I'm experimenting with a different 
kind of 'root cellar' -- old refrigerators and freezers filled with 
straw to hold potatoes, carrots, etc.  I'm curious to see how it works.

Uriel / SW Missouri


> From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
> To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 4:08 PM
> Subject: [Livingontheland] root cellars / Looking for advice on a few topics
>
>
>
> "Root cellars are nature's way of storing fruits and vegetables. And they
> can be excellent storage areas for other things as well. A hundred years
> ago root cellars were one of the few ways they had of keeping things cool.
> People not only put potatoes and carrots in their root cellars, but their
> preserved meat, milk and cream, fruits and vegetables - literally anything
> they needed to keep cool. Even though root cellars didn't get nearly as
> cold as a refrigerator during summer months, root cellars generally were
> and are 30 to 40 degrees F cooler than daytime summer temperatures."
>
> complete article at http://waltonfeed.com/old/cellars.html
>
> Root Cellar Basics complete page at
> http://waltonfeed.com/old/cellar4.html
> # Temperature is your most important interest
> # Your second most important consideration is humidity
> # Air circulation
> # How big of a cellar should you build?
> # Shelves
> # What kind of root cellar is right for you?
> # Construction methods
> # Using your root cellar
> # Vegetables and their optimum storage conditions
>
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
> Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
> --Henry David Thoreau
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 7/21/2006 at 2:04 PM Dianne Palmer-Quay wrote:
>
>   
> > Finally, does anyone know anything about root cellar type storage in the
> > South?  My crawl space is about 74 degrees now (outside highs are the
> >     
> upper
>   
> > 90's) which is where I am storing the surplus potatoes and winter squash
> >     
> >from this year's garden.  But that temperature is too warm (according to
>   
> > the books).  Any ideas how I could create a cooler space without a
> > refrigeration device?
> >     
>
>
>
>
>
>
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