Market Farming

["Ploughshare" <gjbrever AT midwestinfo.net>]

John,
 I keep our carrots, rhutabagas and other like root crops in plastic totes 
with a liner of plastic around them.   I also keep our cabbage and potatoes 
in totes without plastic.  They all keep pretty well  in our walk-in cooler 
through out the winter (the potatoes only do fair).   It's only days like 
today (-15degrees) that really requires a bit of supplemental heat. and just 
a small heater will do. If I was really picky about humidity I might run our 
humidifier(especially for the spuds).  Our onions and winter squash I keep 
in our heated garage at about 55 degrees.  The onions do great through out 
the winter.  The squash does fair but this is only because every year ( I 
mean every year for the past 5 years) our furnace has seemed to go out and 
it ends up being on the coldest days of the year.

One other note: last year I got a tip from John Fisher-Merritt (sp?) that 
washing carrots before storing them does NOT seem to reduce the storage life 
of the carrots by too long.  I tried it the past two years and have been 
very happy to be able to go out to our cooler and have carrots without a 
bunch of dirt on them.
--gary brever
ploughshare farm
225 member CSA
central MN