This fourth dimension of year , as we lead inside and our gardens are covered in snow , we look for ways to keep enjoying unfermented food .
Whether for commercial-grade sale , home consumption or community food security system , the root basement is an important infrastructure for growers , especially for those in northern mood .
Because ancestor cellars are so important , I ’m go to dedicate my next few article to looking at them . First up , let ’s explore how root cellars work by examining what you should store in them .
Roots in a Root Cellar
There are dissimilar case of root cellar and scales to suite all farm , homestead and landscapes .
Some root cellars can be built into your home or barn , while others will be stand - alone structures or built into the side of a hill .
However , in all cases the word root cellar should be the right way link up with stash away mainly root vegetables — hence the news ‘ root ’ in the rubric . ( you may see my previous article about other types of winter food storage , including ‘ leaf cellar , ’ pantries and more . ) That does n’t mean we can not apply a root cellar to store apples or onions .
But these items require unlike intent condition .
you may store apples in similar conditions to carrot . But apples and carrots can not lodge in the same cellar . Why ? The ethylene gas apples give off during storage will make the carrot go blistering .
Onions , on the other hand , need drying agent weather condition or they will regulate .
So , again , the starting point for a root cellar journey is understanding how to lay in root vegetables . This demand mellow humidity , insensate and no luminosity . The follow details conditions needed for the main types of inhuman store for popular vegetables .
Read more : There are a smorgasbord of way to keep your fruits and vegetable for wintertime enjoyment .
Root Dormancy
By using a beginning wine cellar that fund “ roots , ” we are essentially in the business of maintaining the atmospheric condition root need to remain inactive . That ’s mighty — dormant !
Many of our favorite solution cellar vegetables , such as carrots , beetroot , potato and winter radish , are actually alive . They ’re just resting in a instinctive country until the conditions for breaking sleeping return … or until they are eaten .
I like to draw near understanding the conditions ( temperature , humidity , lightheaded ) necessary for proper root cellaring through the electron lens of dormancy for two understanding .
First , it prompt us about a few significant face of root cellaring as a food conservation proficiency . Namely , we stay mindful that vegetables like carrot in a antecedent cellar are go food for thought . Unlike the salad useable in wintertime at a grocery storage , they have the vital force and nutrition of a plant that is still live .
second , as a last nutrient that is a biannual ( a industrial plant that takes two season to bring out seminal fluid ) , carrots can increase community food security department . How ? They ply a source of future seed saving and re - localization of smorgasbord selection for regional differences in climate and demand .
If you do n’t eat all your carrots in the root basement , you could just found them in the garden . They will flower and produce cultivated carrot seed !
Read more : Grow some downfall radishes for full nip and easy storehouse .
Stable Conditions
There ’s another understanding I wish to look at rootage cellar design by understanding dormancy , too . In many ways , we should give more care to the critical grandness of reducing fluctuations of warehousing consideration , which is a raw call to break away dormancy .
Let ’s understand carrots , beets and potatoes as “ animation entities . ” In a cellar that mime the born term they might have in a winter environs , they :
With this position , we can see that , in a natural environment there are little calls to wake up up as wintertime turns to leaping . So little fluctuations in temperature , spark and humidity should be avoided to better root cellar vegetable storage .
well to store your Daucus carota sativa at a few degree warm than ideal than have them fluctuate within a more ideal orbit on a daily or weekly basis . For that reason , undecomposed root cellar design should maximize the constancy of cellar condition .
Next up , we ’ll search some of the different design options for root cellars .
