Root Cellar
Created | Updated Mar 4, 2002
If you have a garden or an estate you will most probable have a vegetable garden and lots of fruit trees and bushes.
Growing your own stuff is a very rewarding thing, but you will most likely be facing a huge problem when it comes to storing the produce.
Some people have adopted the idea, that freezer's are a great invention. But consider the problems you will face when there is a power cut.
After a longish power cut the stored produce can only be used to frighten people of. A good swing with your right arm and mother in law will withdraw.
A root cellar is the perfect answer to both problems (mother in law and storing produce).
You dig a biggish hole in the ground and build a room inside the hole. Remember that the floor must be left as a dirt floor. After the concrete or whatever has settled, you cover the hole thing with the dug up earth and - hey presto - you have a root cellar.
If you remembered to put in a door in one end you can now start using it to store your produce. The dirt floor will make sure the humidity will stay high thus preserving the produce. Remember that high humidity instantly will start working on the door and the shelves and this can (read: will) be fatal for inferior woods like chipwood and such. Use wood with a high content of natural preserves (almost in the words of Monty Python: number one - the larch).
You do not have to thaw the produce (ready in minutes) and not freezing it will preserve the taste.
As an added bonus the root cellar can be used as a convenient guest room for when mother in law comes to visit. The high humidity will save her money om moisteriser - thus making certain she will love you for your consideration.
Growing your own stuff is a very rewarding thing, but you will most likely be facing a huge problem when it comes to storing the produce.
Some people have adopted the idea, that freezer's are a great invention. But consider the problems you will face when there is a power cut.
After a longish power cut the stored produce can only be used to frighten people of. A good swing with your right arm and mother in law will withdraw.
A root cellar is the perfect answer to both problems (mother in law and storing produce).
You dig a biggish hole in the ground and build a room inside the hole. Remember that the floor must be left as a dirt floor. After the concrete or whatever has settled, you cover the hole thing with the dug up earth and - hey presto - you have a root cellar.
If you remembered to put in a door in one end you can now start using it to store your produce. The dirt floor will make sure the humidity will stay high thus preserving the produce. Remember that high humidity instantly will start working on the door and the shelves and this can (read: will) be fatal for inferior woods like chipwood and such. Use wood with a high content of natural preserves (almost in the words of Monty Python: number one - the larch).
You do not have to thaw the produce (ready in minutes) and not freezing it will preserve the taste.
As an added bonus the root cellar can be used as a convenient guest room for when mother in law comes to visit. The high humidity will save her money om moisteriser - thus making certain she will love you for your consideration.
