How to Create a Root Cellar for Food Storage

Posted by: Daisy Luther | on September 14, 2013

(This Site http://www.theorganicprepper.ca of Daisy Luther is wonderfull and full of good information on Preparing)

In our agrarian past, we didn’t have a grocery store in every town receiving shipments of fresh fruits and vegetables from all corners of the world on a daily basis. Food preservation was a necessity to survive the long winter in most locations. Over the centuries, many have gotten their winter produce fix from a simple non-tech solution: the root cellar.

Last year when I did my One-Month Stockpile Challenge, I realized that this was a glaring omission in my food stockpile process, so this year, I’m determined to add this strategy to take my stockpile to the next level. Fall is the perfect time to begin because for the next few months, those hard-shelled root vegetables as well as items like apples and potatoes, will be abundant and cheap.

The first root cellars in recorded history were in Australia – 40,000 years ago it is indicated that they were burying their yam harvests in order to keep them fresh. Since then, underground food storage caches have been found all over the world, as people took advantage of the cool moist atmosphere a few feet down.

THE IDEAL ROOT CELLAR

Root cellars are often in the basement of one’s home or in a separate concrete or stone cellar just outside the home. Michigan State University offers these tips on conditions for the ideal root cellar:

The produce is still alive – stored carbohydrates of energy is consumed in the presence of oxygen and produces heat and carbon dioxide. To maintain the proper “living” conditions, at least three variables need to be considered: temperature, humidity and ventilation.
Temperature:
Most cold tolerant or cool season crops will store best between 33 and 35F or just above freezing and up to 40F. Warm season crops sensitive to chilling injury (tomatoes, cucumbers, etc) are typically stored at temperatures above 50F unless processing, cooking or eating will occur shortly after removal from storage. The temperature needs to be actively monitored and managed and will vary with the quantity of produce in the space.
Humidity:
Most root and leafy crops will store best at high humidity (+80%) or moisture levels. Root crops like carrots need to be stored in some moist medium to maintain quality. Some crops like onion, garlic and winter squash store better at low humidity level (less than 60%). Moisture may need to be added by wetting the floor or walls with water depending on the construction methods.
Ventilation:
Reasons for ventilation include: 1) removal of heat of respiration, 2) replenishing the oxygen supply, 3) removing volatile compounds from the produce that may effect flavor or sprouting like ethylene. The greater the density or amount of produce in the space, the more ventilation is needed. Ventilation or air tubes need to be planned prior to construction and place during construction.
Common storage categories are 1) cold dry, 2) cold moist, 3) cool dry, 4) cool moist. (source)

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture offers the following chart with storage information for specific produce:

Vegetables	Temp F.	% Humidity	Storage Time	Comments
Beets	32°	90–95	3 months	Leave 1-inch stem.
Brussels sprouts	32°	90–95	4 weeks	Wrap to avoid drying
Cabbage	38°	90–95	4 months	Late maturing varieties **
Carrots	32°	90–95	5 months	Top leaving ¼-inch stem *
Cauliflower	32°	85–90	3 weeks	Wrap in leaves *
Celery	32°	90–95	4 months	Dig with roots ***
Chinese cabbage 32°	90–95	2 months	Dig with roots ***
Cucumbers	50°	85–90	3 weeks	Waxed or moist packing *
Kohlrabi	38°	90–95	3 months	Trim leaves *
Onions	32°	55–60	8 months	Dry for two weeks.
Parsnip	32°	90–95	6 months	Top leaving ¼-inch stem *
Potatoes	38°	85–90	8 months	Pack in boxes unwashed.
Squash	60°	55–60	3 months	Winter types, leave 2-inch stem
Tomatoes	60°	55–60	8 weeks	Single layer in covered boxes
Turnips	38°	90–95	3 months	Waxed or moist packing *
Small fruits	32°	85–90	7 days

* Pack in moistened sawdust or sand.
** Wrap in clean newspaper.
*** Replant in moist sand.
(source)

ORGANIZATION OF YOUR ROOT CELLAR

You can’t just place everything together and hope for your food to all remain fresh. Some items cannot be stored together because they release a gas called ethylene. Ethylene gas is a ripening agent,which hastens the decomposition of other produce.

For example, apples, pears, and tomatoes produce high amounts of ethylene and should be placed higher than other foods, and near vents if possible. They should not be placed near potatoes and carrots, as the ethylene will cause those to spoil rapidly.

Some produce will easily absorb odors from items with strong smells. Strong smelling foods like cabbages or turnips can be wrapped in newspaper to help contain the smell. Onions store well when hung in mesh bags.

Some produce is stored more successfully if cured at a temperature of 80-90 degrees F for 10 days before being placed into storage:

• winter squash
• onions
• potatoes
• garlic

Two small investments for your root cellar should be a thermometer to measure temperature and a hygrometer to measure humidity. This way you can ensure your conditions are right to keep your food fresh for the longest possible time.

Resources
The following resources provide specific information on how to create and maintain your own root cellar:
The Old Farmer’s Almanac
Mother Earth News
Michigan State University
Root Cellaring by Mike and Nancy Bubel
Modern Homesteaders

About the author:

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio.
Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

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Posted in Non-Tech, Prepping, Preserving | 8 Comments »
Tags: carrots, food storage, onions, potatoes, root cellar, squash, stockpile

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8 Comments to How to Create a Root Cellar for Food Storage

1. anon says:

   September 14, 2013 at 5:35 pm

   Daisy and all, unless the usgs earthquake map is wrong, it has started, over 100 quakes in the last hour, told you I would advise, NEVER seen anything like it. the entire map red around the pacific rim.
   

   Reply
2. G! says:

   September 16, 2013 at 10:40 am

   It seems we are on the same page. We planted butternut squash this year and plan on making one of the areas in our 1/2 basement a root cellar. I read where one woman washed and soaked her winter squashes in approximately 1:10 Clorox (store bought solution) to water! You can kill Ebola with that. While I understand that chlorine is used for vegetable washes all the time in our modern food centers, I am going to use vinegar and make sure the squashes do not touch. We have also used the space under the stairs in the bilco doors. I understand that root cellars must be maintained. Then again, so are freezers and refrigerators!
   

   Reply
3. HalfKin says:

   September 16, 2013 at 4:12 pm

   When we had our homestead in the 80’s we had a Root Cellar and a Fruit Cellar.
   We had hundreds of pounds of vegetables and apples we stored each year, and the apples would have made everything else ripen too fast.
   If you must store them in the same location try this – Wrap each apple with paper, newsprint or otherwise and store between layers of cardboard in the boxes. If you do not put your potatoes in a bin of dirt or sawdust then at least throw a heavy packing blanket over them in their bags.
   Onions, Garlic, squashes all need pantry treatment. Cool – not as cold as root cellar although it can be, but DEFINITELY not as moist. Cellar cool/cold moist – Pantry cool dry.
   One year I washed ALL of our squash dipped in mild bleach water and let them air dry all over the kitchen. I also examined for bruising or frost burns and ate those first. Any that had lost a stem got wax poured over the area to seal. They lasted well into spring.
   And oh yah, why don’t we still have the homestead? The proverbial SHTF. And it was TEOTWA I knew it.
   But I am going to make another attempt here in my older years. If the world still exists in a recognizable form I hope to be on my sons twenty acres in a couple of years…
   But before I move I need/want two things. A huge cistern that can be kept from freezing and ? You guessed it – A root cellar!
   HalfKin
   

   Reply
4. canadagal says:

   September 17, 2013 at 8:06 am

   Halfkin… our 9000 gal cistern is under our basement & doesn’t freeze on the Canadian prairies. Of course it depends if you have deep soil so this is possible.
   We ate our last two carrots from last years crop in July this year. Good enough to be grated for salad. We packed them in pails of sand in our root cellar.
   

   Reply
   • HalfKin says:

     September 17, 2013 at 12:23 pm

     To canadagal – if it is in your basement, does that mean you rely on electricity to get your water out? I am hoping to go off grid as much as possible. Not that I do not love having the little power switch, however, I want a system in place to sustain me without having to store fuels, depend on solar, have an arsenal of battery back up, etc.
     We are considering wind mill to draw water up from the deep well if all goes down,but they have parts that wear out also.
     I lived three years with no electricity and I didn’t really miss it that much. Those were the days before internet and all.
     Thanks for your input,
     HalfKin
     

     Reply
5. wildman says:

   September 17, 2013 at 1:12 pm

   Halfkin the windmills now will last waay past our lifetimes. the ranch has 1 that has over 25 years on it without a breakdown so there ya go. since where we live its kinda flat all i did was had a basement poured 4 ft in the ground then covered up the rest with ground i had moved for some hoop houses. so no problem. the power thing is up to you.
   

   Reply
   • HalfKin says:

     September 17, 2013 at 1:36 pm

     Wildman – good to know about the windmill parts,thanks!
     

     Reply
   • Gabe says:

     September 27, 2013 at 3:05 pm

     Hi,
     I will be moving to the family home where I was raised. It is located in central Minnesota and is at the edge of a river. We just put in a new well and a geothermal heat system, so I suppose the grid will fry and the geo won’t be worth squat. However, we do plan to install a hand pump, alongside the geo pump in the well. I found a site that makes them this way so that you do not have to pull your pump from the line in order to switch to hand pumping.
     However, it would be nice to also have a windmill for this purpose also. Can anyone suggest a reputable, fair priced place to buy one? The geo killed us $$$$$$. The house has hot water base board heat that also will work, if there is fuel oil to be had at an affordable price and if there is electricity. In addition, the is a fireplace with a heatilator in the living room. It also has an electric fan system to circulate air around the heatilator and then into the room. I do plan to buy a cast iron stove for in the kitchen, as I think that if TSHTF it will be impossible to get cooking gas for very long.
     If we get the right tools and build an ice house we could store ice from the river to use in the summer. My father used to talk about their ice house, cutting ice chunks from the pond across the road, and hauling the ice to the ice house and covering it with sawdust. The neighbor makes kitchen cabinets so I think we could stock up on saw dust. Also found a place giving away large plastic type bags that contained 2,000 lbs. Niger thistle seed. We got about 50 of them so I think we do some serious saw dust storage…..LOL
     The area is full of the older burr oaks so there is endless wood that can be cut and piled. We are currently in the process of putting an entirely new roof on a huge “shop” and also a two stall garage. I think we will store cut and chopped wood in the shop, and perhaps also some sawdust.
     My concern is that TSHTF before we get everything set up.
     Any info. Re. Windmills would be greatly appreciated.
     We plan to have lots of chickens, goats, and some pigs too.
     We also have 28 small sized dogs that we adopted due to the dogs having medical problems, so having everything set up and ready to go is HUGELY important to us.
     Thanks for any info and names of resource places……..
     

     Reply

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The EPA Takes an Ax to Self-Sufficiency: Most Woodburning Stoves Will Soon Be Illegal

Posted by: Daisy Luther | on September 28, 2013

When you think of that little dream homestead in the woods, what does it include? Probably a well and septic system, a little stream bubbling nearby, a chicken coop, a sunroom for winter growing, and a cozy fire to curl up next to.
When my daughter and I spent a year living in a cabin in the Northwoods of Canada, our woodstove was our lifeline. It was the only source of heat in a place that reached -42 degrees. It was the only way we could cook when our power went out during snow and ice storms (as it did frequently). It was the cozy center of our home, and we survived for an entire frigid winter for less than$800. After that experience I vowed never to live in a home without a woodstove.
If the EPA has its way, however, heating your home self-sufficiently with wood could soon become illegal – or at the very least, insanely expensive.
Off Grid Survival reports:

Shortly after the re-election of President Obama, the agency announced new radical environmental regulations that threaten to effect people who live off the grid. The EPA’s new environmental regulations reduce the amount of airborne fine-particle matter from 15 micrograms to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
This means that most wood burning stoves would now fall into a class that would deemed unacceptable under these new draconian measures. The EPA has even launched a nifty new website called Burn Wise to try to sway public opinion.
On their site, while trying to convince people to get rid of their old stoves and buy the new EPA-certified stoves, they state that these older stove must be scrapped and cannot be resold.
From the EPA Site:
The local air pollution agency says I can’t sell my old wood stove to help pay for an EPA-certified wood stove. Why is that?
Replacing an older stove with a cleaner-burning stove will not improve air quality if the older stove is reused somewhere else. For this reason, wood stove change out programs usually require older stoves to be destroyed and recycled as scrap metal, or rendered inoperable. (source)

And here is the information right from the EPA:

Enclosed is the list of wood stoves certified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA Certified Wood Stoveslist contains information about wood stoves or wood heating appliances that have been certified by the EPA along with its manufacturer name, model name, emission rate (g/hr), heat output (btu/hr), efficiency (actual measured and estimated), and type of appliance. It also indicates whether the appliance is still being manufactured. An EPA certified wood stove or wood heating appliance has been independently tested by an accredited laboratory to determine whether it meets the particulate emissions limit of 7.5* grams per hour for noncatalytic wood stoves and 4.1* grams per hour for catalytic wood stoves. All wood heating appliances that are offered for sale in the United States are subject to the New Source Performance Standard for New Residential Wood Heaters under the Clean Air Act and are required to meet these emission limits. An EPA certified wood stove can be identified by a temporary paper label attached to the front of the wood stove and a permanent metal label affixed to the back or side of the wood stove.

See the EPA’s list of acceptable woodstoves HERE.
One of the easiest ways for the government to force this issue is through homeowner’s insurance policies. If you have a mortgage, you have absolutely no option but to carry homeowner’s insurance. Even if you own you homestead outright, most people consider insuring their homes and property to be a vital safety net. When your policy comes up for annual renewal, the insurance company can require an inspection of your home. At that time, compliance can easily be forced by either charging insanely high rates or through the cancellation of the policies of those who have “outdated” woodstoves.

An Attack on Self-Sufficient Living

The ability to heat your home off-grid is a major part of most preparedness plans. Heating with wood is the number one way to do this. Much like our food supplies, the ability to keep ourselves warm and healthy and the ability to cook without being connected to the grid are vital to our freedom.
Those of us who live this lifestyle are constantly targeted. In many places it’s illegal to collect rainwater. Growing food in your front yard instead of flowers is all but outlawed. Sellers of raw milk have their farms raided by SWAT teams as though they’re running a meth lab instead of a dairy. We are being Codex Alimentarius-ed and Agenda 21-ed right into slavery and the government and it’s agencies try to make it appear that they are “saving” us.
We, the self-sufficient, by our very nature, are a threat to this insidiously spreading control. Our self-sufficiency means that we won’t be forced to be subjugated, tagged, chipped, and inventoried like our less prepared friends and neighbors. We won’t have to cave in order to survive. We can eat, stay warm, and stay off the radar. And this is a threat because we can withstand the assaults on our freedom. We don’t need the government’s benevolence to survive. Those of us who don’t need the government are the last hold-outs of liberty in a country that has strayed far from it’s freedom-loving origins.

The “Credibility” of the EPA

Don’t be fooled by environmental friendliness or the warm and fuzzy green words. The EPA is just another tool of subjugation. Their stamp of approval carries the same “credibility” as that of USDA or FDA approval. The Environmental Protection Agency, that bastion of clean air and fertile land, wants you to believe that they are taking steps to save us all.
You know, the same folks who upped the legal levels of glyphosate for their friends at Monsanto, even though the herbicide has been proven to cause toxicity and death. The same agency that responded quickly when radiation from the Fukushima disaster reached dangerous levels on the shores of California by closing down 8 of their 18 radiation-testing facilities in California and increasing the “safe amounts” of radiation that we can absorb.
The EPA (or as I like to call it, the Environmental Deception Agency) tends to find things to be highly threatening to the environment only when those things allow us to be non-reliant on big business.
One controversy after another can be attributed to the EPA, an agency charged with protecting the air we breathe, the soil in which we grow our food and the water that we drink. At the bottom of each of those controversies can be found ties to the conspiracies of the big businesses that really run the country. Decisions are being auctioned off to industry lobbyists with the most money and influence.
Environmental protection is only the rule of thumb if it goes along with Agenda 21 – the EPA is all over the green agenda in cases that benefit the redistribution of wealth, but the agency completely ignores blatant crimes against the earth if it involves fracking for the benefit of a natural gas company or poisoning the soil and groundwater for the benefit of a biotech monolith.

About the author:

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio.
Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

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Seaberry / Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides): Sea Buckthorn and Insect Pests

Seaberry / Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides): Sea Buckthorn and Insect Pests: When I first began looking into Sea Buckthorn (a number of years ago now), one of the attributes of the plant was that it was not bothered...

Note:
I have used sea buckthorn as a puree drink for a while and like it, seems to help inflamations, and blood flow, as well as anti diabetic usages.. plan on growing some.

Worth checking it out and trying some of it for a month and see how you feel.

Global warming: The BIGGEST LIE exposed

September 22, 2013

Global warming: The BIGGEST LIE exposed

By Alan Caruba


I will never understand the kind of thinking behind a lie so big that it became an international fraud and swindle. I cannot understand why an international organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) operating under the umbrella of the United Nations, was permitted to issue reports of an imminent threat to the Earth, to mankind, that a freshman student of meteorology would know were false.

At long last the Big Lie of Global Warming has been totally exposed and we can thank The Heartland Institute, a free market think tank that has organized and hosted eight international Conferences on Climate Change since 2008 to expose the lies behind global warming – now called "climate change" – as it became clear that seventeen years of continuous cooling has put a Big Chill on this Big Lie.

I suspect that the Heartland team, led by Joe Bast and including some remarkable, dedicated people, will only get a line or two in some future historian's account of the deception that began in 1988 before a congressional committee. Thereafter the global warming hoax was given momentum by former Vice President Al Gore who, along with the IPCC, would receive a Nobel Peace Prize!

It helps to have a sense of humor when you are doing battle with hucksters who have the entire world's media to defend them. The climate "skeptics" – some of the world's most renowned meteorologists – dubbed their effort the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and, working with the Heartland Institute, have just released a new edition of "Climate Change Reconsidered II."

It arrives just as the IPCC will release its 5th Assessment Report. The IPCC's lies will get lots of news coverage. Heartland's NIPCC report was fortunate to have notice taken by Fox News, but beyond that most of the intransigent U.S. news media ignored it.

As often as not one has to look to foreign newspapers to get the truth. In Great Britain's The Mail, the headline on September 14 was "Global warming just HALF what we said: World's top climate scientists admit computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong." A leaked copy of the IPCC report revealed "scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong."

Well, of course, they were wrong. The so-called "science" on which they were based was idiotic. It focused primarily on carbon dioxide (CO2) and other so-called "greenhouse gases," claiming they were trapping heat while being produced by all manner of human activity related to generating energy with coal, oil, and natural gas.

Dr. Martin Hertzberg, Ph,D, co-author of "Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory," summed it up neatly, pointing out that water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere is a primary factor affecting climate long term and weather short term.

"The determinant of weather is mainly water in all its forms," said Dr. Herzberg, "as vapor in the atmosphere, in its heat transport by evaporation and condensation, as the enormous circulating mass of liquid ocean whose heat capacity and mass/energy transport dominate the motions of our atmosphere and the precipitation from it, and finally as cloud, snow, and ice cover which influence the radiative balance between the Sun, the Earth, and free Space."

As you try to wrap your mind around that explanation, just think about the way the Earth goes through regular seasons as well as predictable cycles of warming and cooling. It has done this now for some 4.5 billion years.

To read "Climate Change Reconsidered II," visit its website. Among its findings, the report notes that "no close correlation exists between temperature variation over the past 150 years and human related CO2 emissions." Blaming the climate or even the weather on humans is insane. You might as well blame the floods in Colorado on humans instead of the downpours of rain, comparable to 1894 and 1969.

Indeed, the U.S. gives ample evidence of greatly reduced events associated with the weather. There have been fewer tornadoes over recent decades. It's been eight years since a Category 3 hurricane hit the U.S. Droughts have been shorter and less extreme than the 1930s and 1950s. And sea levels are predicted to increase barely four to eight inches per century and that may be on the high side. There will be dramatic weather events, but there have always been dramatic weather events!

The Heartland's new report is welcome, but both they and I know that the same deceitful charlatans are still at work in the United Nations, in the United States, and around the world to keep this greatest of hoaxes alive.

The harm the global warming hoax has done and continues to do is best seen in the efforts of the Environmental Protection Agency to wipe out the coal industry based entirely on the lie that CO2 is a "pollutant." When the House Energy& Commerce Committee held a hearing on the Obama administration's climate policies thirteen agencies were invited to testify, but the administration provided only EPA administrator Gina McCarty and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The latter read a prepared statement that was one long lie about global warming. Presumably he was under oath!

Ms. McCarty, the latest in a long line of environmental fanatics to run the agency, was forced under questioning to admit that current and proposed greenhouse gas regulations are not there to protect the public but to influence "the international community" to reduce their CO2 and other alleged emissions. Not only do the regulations have no basis in science, but they exist to keep the environmental war on energy use going and to pressure developing nations such as China and India. Within the past month, the citizens of Australia rose up and threw out the politicians who imposed a "carbon" tax on them. The new prime minister has shut down the "climate ministry" that existed to enforce it.

And while most of the world wasn't watching, the United Nations was seeking to impose, once again, an international agreement similar to the failed and defunct Kyoto Protocol to limit CO2 and other greenhouse emissions, based on the BIG LIE! The 44th Pacific Islands Forum, held in the Marshall Islands, was intent on "an ambitious future climate regime to be finalized in 2015."

That is what must be understood. These people will not give up until they have no other option. They will continue to exploit the ignorance of people regarding the actual science, penalizing them by driving up the cost of energy use, by closing down energy industries, prospective projects, and the jobs they provide,

They sustain the malignant ethanol scam that is ruining engines as this is being written. They are behind the useless solar panel and wind turbine industries that produce so little actual electricity they are a negative drag on the national grid. You, however, are picking up the tab for their mandated use. They practice a form of child abuse to tell children the Earth is doomed if their mother uses a plastic bag to bring groceries home from the supermarket.

The world's BIGGEST LIE has been exposed and it will have to be exposed again and again until a stake is driven into the evil heart of the "global warming" hoax.

© Alan Caruba

Obama Supporters Go Hysterical Over List of 252 Examples of Obama’s Lying, Corruption, and Cronyism

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