Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Gwen Giffen" <ggiffen@1st.net>]

I live in Ohio. My family has lived in several homes where there were both 
root cellars and springhouses - both very moist and cool. One springhouse 
had a room built on it for that specific use, and there were no shelves for 
canning jars there. It was built for crates of vegetables. We have stored 
root vegetables in both successfully. You just have to do it right. Some 
root vegetables have to be laid in the sun until they have a waxy-like 
coating on them.

My oldest brother loves to grow potatoes. He also loves woodworking and has 
a lot of extra sawdust. He stores his potatoes in vats of sawdust, so they 
don't touch each other. One year he gave everyone their own big burlap sack 
full of potatoes for Christmas. They did not grow eyes on them as Art says, 
and they sure weren't rotton either. Some of the root vegetables do rot - 
that is why you store them in a manner where they don't touch each other, 
and you check them periodically and take the rotten ones out so the rot 
doesn't spread.

Gwen


> Some of these articles on the internet may sound good but a lot of them 
> are
> only people repeating what they have read. When you have actually done 
> that
> you will see that a lot of this stuff doesn't work exactly like some are
> saying. If you ever dig a cellar close to trees you will learn very quick
> why they are called "Root Cellars".
>
> First of all for about anything to keep for any length of time without 
> being
> canned or frozen it must first be air cured (dried) to some degree. This
> goes for veggies, meats, fruits or anything else. You can dry just about
> anything and it will keep a long time. You cannot keep anything in a damp
> root cellar that is not sealed from the moisture. Potatoes, carrots, sweet
> potatoes, and a lot of other things are not sealed from the moisture. 
> Water
> melons, and some of the other tough skinned veggies and fruits are sealed 
> as
> long as the skin is not punctured.
>
> A lot of these people that publish some of this stuff simply do not know
> what they are talking about. A root cellar is to protect foods that are
> protected from moisture from freezing and that's it. Here in Arkansas they
> are very often use to get out of the way of these stupid tornadoes.
>
> Art in Arkansas