Cold Cellars

[Beekissed]

I have a cellar! As a matter of fact, we are cleaning it out today..... Not one of my favorite chores but it feels good to get it ready for putting away all my canned goods. My cellar is okay but needs more insulation in the ceiling to be ideal for storage. Last year, I found the inside temp is too affected by outside temps to effectively store things like apples or potatoes. This year I am putting insulation between the ceiling beams and all the nooks and crannies that may compromise the temps. I would also like to haul some soil and bank it up further on the outside walls. That will have to come later, I expect.

I will be storing my sweet onions in a section of our attic that is well insulated but ventilated, so stays cool but not freezing in the winter. Dry up there also, as I cannot store onions in my moist cellar. Also will store pumpkins, gourds, etc. there.

For the most part, this is a nice cellar that was built back in the 30s, with a "cellar house" above it. It has very sturdy shelves and the bins are shallow and built into the shelving system, not right on the floor. The floor is dirt and gets a stream of water in heavy rains, so I put down a stack of shingles that I found in the outhouse. Now it still gets damp, but not muddy. I would like to put in some good sized gravel for this problem, eventually.

Love my cellar, though, as I can place watermelons that won't fit in the fridge out there to cool. My grandma's cellar was full to bursting and kind of creepy. I would eventually like to get some large crocks and put in some pickled corn like she always had.

When we were growing up I helped my folks build a cellar out of logs. That was a good cellar that lasted us a long while.

 

[MorelCabin]

For those of you that can, I would really LOVE to see pictures of what you all have done! I am going to post apic of the space I plan on using...maybe get some ideas of what can be done down there...or what NEEDS to be done down there! It is a huge room, really 8 ft wide by about 30 ft long...a real bomb shelter...(that's what we have always called it:>)

This is the ladder that leads down from the floor in the bedroom through a trapdoor

This is the small side

This is the space I want to use...yup...it needs some work, and some of the plumbing needs to be moved up. The floor is a cliff, and something will have to be done about that. The problem is getting all the wood for flooring through that little 2x3 trap door!

 

[ShellieESterling]

I'd like to see pictures too. I'd like to make one here.

 

[Alaska Animal Lover]

I am doing the root cellar for the first time this year, I have a basement with a dirt floor and stone walls, it has the right amounts of humidity and all that so we are going to use it as the root cellar this year.
There is an excellent book called
Root Cellaring Natral cold storage of fruits & vegetables by Mike and Nancy Bubel
It explains everything you need to know about root cellaring and has pictures of peoples actual root cellars.
There are other ways of doing root cellaring aside from in your basement.
Some people dig out a root cellar from a hill on their property, or dig a hole in the ground with a trap door, you can bury a barrel in the ground, build one under the porch, in a smoke house,etc.
People have buried old referigerators in the grouond and used them.
You can build a vegetable clamp out in the yard as well if you don't have a place for a root cellar.
Its when you place your vegetables in a pyramid and cover it with straw. There is a little more to it, but its a way of storing vegetables that doesn't involve any building.
The book has sections on what stores well, what to plant and when and then how to store it.
For example:
If you want to store carrots it explains that you should lay them in a crate with sand. Do a single layer of carrots and then a layer of sand and keep going like that until the box is full. You can also use leaves or moss to do that.
They explain how to store every vegetable, in detail.
It is a very detailed book and if there is a will there is a way. These people figure out a way to do everything.
It also has recipes in this book.
I had been online and there was a thread about this on the other forum, but really not enough information on it that I felt comfortable doing this until I read this book.
I realized that my basement is literally perfect for a root cellar, so now I am planting crops specifically to put up that way.

I just got this book a month ago or so, it is wonderful!

 

[the simple life]

There is alot that can be done to have cold cellar, there are so many variations. I know that you need to have some ventilation and a decent humidity level. I have a dirt floor that I would like to put gravel down on too. The book recommends wetting the floor some if you don't get enough humidity there.
The good thing about having the gravel down is that you can store bushel baskets and crates directly on top if you run out of space on the shelves.
You can grow some things in the basement too, these people in the book grew leeks I believe and a couple of other things there.
I know they sell mushroom logs too, you just put them in the basement and they grow. Not sure about that for myself, but guess its kind of cool.
If you want to store things that need different temps and humidity and your area is big enough you can divide the room up and control the ventilation,temp and humidity by sections.
I saw one couple they featured in the book use the back side of the stairs going up to their house from the cellar as shelves and they used refrigerator draws to store the food in.They modified it a bit and could pull the draws in and out from under each step.
People are very innovative when it comes to this and you can steal their ideas.
Lets keep each other posted on how we do this year with our root cellars.

 

[MorelCabin]

I posted pics on post# 12. Any ideas anyone?

 

[Woodland Woman]

That looks really cool! Almost like a secret room! It looks like you would have to find a way to secure supports for a floor. Can you drill into that rock?

 

[the simple life]

How deep is that room, floor to ceiling? Is that all crawl space or is it just the picture?

 

[MorelCabin]

The room is about 5 ft from the top of the rock to the ceiling and about 8 or 9 ft from the bottom of the 'cliff' to the ceiling. It is a very secret room:>) the guy who we bought the place from didn't even know about it:>) I'm thinking of putting a floor of sorts into the one side to even it out, but keeping the one side a rock/dirt floor It is a large room...about 30 ft long by about 8 ft wide

 

[the simple life]

I know its good to have gravel over a dirt floor for root cellars, you need humidity and ventilation as well.
Instead of putting in flooring maybe you could consider using pieces of slate. They are easier to get down there and they will work better in a cold cellar.
You can put some hooks in the ceiling to cure garlic and hand bags of vegetables.
Maybe some shelving from floor to ceiling for crates and bushel baskets.
Its really long so you can divide it up so that you can keep things like apples and potatoes apart.
With a room that long but not big enough to walk around in. I am wondering if you could actually put in a pulley system and hang the crates or baskets so they are off the floor and easier for you to get at.
In the end if you find something is not really working for you it can always be changed. I suspect most people have to tweak things when it comes to storing in a root cellar.