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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Re: Bushel baskets/census : Processing Issues

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  • From: Thomas Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Re: Bushel baskets/census : Processing Issues
  • Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 15:29:41 -0500

Hello,

Partition off a portion of the basement. Drill two 3-4" diameter vent holes
in the new room. Cover the holes with vent caps on the outside. On the
inside, from one vent hole drop a 3-4" diameter pipe (dryer vent pipe) to
within 2" of the floor.

Cold will be drawn into the vent with the pipe and warmer air will exit the
vent with no pipe. It makes a circuit. Creates a pretty stable temperature.
Mine stays at about 45F all winter.

Insulate and weatherstrip the door into the "cold room".

Later,
Tom

Mauch1@aol.com wrote:

> Thanks for the information, I believe it will be useful.
>
> One other thought I had:
> Could I wall off and insulate a part of my basement and install a room air
> conditioner to cool off that room? I probably would need to run some sort
> of humidifier as well. The AC exhaust would go into the rest of the
> basement. Any thoughts on the viability of this? It would probably
> challenge my construction and technical skills.
>
> Chris Mauchline
> SE PA, zone 6
>
> >Small-scale ground temperature storage can reportedly be crafted by using
> >a clay drain pipe and
> >sinking it in the ground. You could probably also get the same effect by
> >cutting holes in the
> >bottom of a trash can and sinking it into the ground.
> >
> >I used to rent a large root cellar for $15/month. I was never able to use
> >it to its full
> >potential, unfortunately. Through experience with it I saw a few
> >guidelines for unrefrigerated
> >storage large or small:
> >1] ventilate to outside air
> >2] holes plugged so mice don't get in [aluminum foil crushed in hand
> >worked well]
> >3] best if apples don't touch each other [e.g. a tray is good]
> >4] humidity is necessary - like 95% - a dirt bottom will probably supply
> >this.
> >5] you will get as many months as the apple variety's storage
> >characteristic allows. [e.g. you
> >won't get 5 months out of Delicious or Gala]
> >6] to gauge the success of your unrefrigerated storage method, use a
> >variety that really is a
> >storage variety - e.g. Northern Spy - don't gauge it by the success of
> >varieties that are said
> >to be storage varieties but aren't such great storers really - e.g. Golden
> >Russet and even
> >Baldwin.
> >7] anything that has enough ground contact will never freeze in U.S.
> >latitudes.
> >8] take an inventory. you may not be growing any varieties at all that
> >are real storers. Lots
> >of varieties will keep a month, which is great, but if you want to pull
> >apples out of storage
> >when prices are high, in February, they won't be Galas or Delicious etc.
> >You've got to have
> >access to real storage varieties to pull prime marketable fruit out of
> >storage in February.
> >9] Think your harvest times out. When Gala ripens, it isn't cold. What
> >difference does it
> >make if Gala stores perfect for 2 months? Say its ripe September 1. Two
> >months later is
> >November 1, the ripen date for one of the Golden Delicious strains Stark
> >Bros. used to sell [or
> >may still sell]. Why haul Gala to storage [and it isn't even cold enough
> >then for
> >unrefrigerated storage] to pull it out 2 months later, when you could have
> >picked Golden
> >Delicious right then on November 1, and not bothered to haul it to
> >storage? So you need a
> >late-ripening-sure-storage variety [and I mean verified, not "I heard it
> >stores" or "it keeps
> >well in the refrigerator."]
> >10] Don't ever compare ground storage to the commercial high-energy-input
> >storage practiced
> >commercially. They pull varieties out of storage that aren't storage
> >varieties at all [like
> >Delicious and Macintosh strains, for example] You're not commercial and
> >you don't want to be,
> >and you can't do as they do and get away with using nonstoring varieties.
> >11] Also don't compare storage in a refrigerator to root cellar storage.
> >
> >Isn't it amazing what apples cost in the supermarket in January? It's a
> >challenge with a
> >possible hefty payoff if you can pull quality apples out of storage in
> >January, if you can get
> >the right variety into the right storage and pull quality apples out. And
> >you can, too, but it
> >isn't as easy as it looks. It wasn't worth my time to spray my own apples
> >and store them
> >myself. It wasn't an efficient use of my time and I didn't enjoy
> >spraying. I never hooked up
> >with the right supplier of grown apples, so I stopped storing in root
> >cellar. If I'd had the
> >right source of Northern Spy I'd have kept storing and would have tried to
> >sell during January
> >and February and March.
> >Charlie Paradise
> >Masachusetts/zone 5
> >
> >
>
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--

===
Canada plant hardiness zone 5b
Southwest Ontario
===






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