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The Garden Plot for September 04, 2009
3:55 PM - 4:00 PM
[Program Website]
Today's Highlight: “Building a Root Cellar”
It’s time to start bringing in the harvest for winter storage. In the days before fresh produce was available in supermarkets year-round, everyone saved the summer garden bounty in a root cellar. Root cellars are an inexpensive way to store root crops, winter squash and other homegrown vegetables and fruit.
If you have a basement you can transform a corner into your very own root cellar. Cool and moist conditions are required for storing most vegetables. Choose a damp spot on an exterior basement wall with a window for ventilation (Use north or shaded walls). If building a root cellar outside, choose a north facing slope or shaded location. Consider the following when building your root cellar:
Maintain high humidity. Even if kept cool, stored vegetables soften and shrivel in a drier, low humidity environment. A typical underground root cellar will maintain a high humidity all by itself, if it has a dirt floor. You may have to add gravel if the floor is too damp.
Allow for ventilation. Good ventilation helps to avoid disease that can spoil produce in high humidity conditions. Use two pipes through the root cellar wall for air exchange. Place one pipe at the highest point of the room. The other pipe can be run down the wall so that the opening ends up about one foot from the floor. Both pipes should be about 3” in diameter. Plastic PVC pipe is durable and easy to work with. Add blast gates, or turn-off valves, to both the upper and lower pipes. These two vent pipes will create a siphon since cool air is more dense than warm air, and collects in low spots. Anytime the air outside your root cellar is cooler than the air inside, the siphon allows warm air to be drawn out and cool air to flow in. If the outside air goes well below freezing you’ll need to close the valves in both pipes (at least partially) to keep temperatures in the root cellar above freezing. Seal the wall around the pipes with aerosol insulating foam.
How big a root cellar should you build? A 5x8’ cellar will store 30 bushels of produce, an 8x8’ root cellar should hold enough for the average family.
Root cellar walls should be built out of rot resistant wood, cement, or stable dirt (the dugout method). Gypsum, or some other moisture resistant wall board, can be used for wall covering. Once panels are in place and attached, stuff or spray insulation into the cavities. A root cellar does not have to be airtight, but the tighter it is, the more control you will have over the air quality and temperature. When building shelves, keep them several inches away from the walls to promote better air circulation. Lower shelves will be cooler and wetter, while higher shelves will be warmer and dryer.
Keep a thermometer and humidity gauge in your cellar. If the humidity in your cellar is too low, you can raise it by: sprinkling water on a gravel floor, laying out damp towels or burlap bags, and by packing root vegetables in damp sawdust, sand or vermiculite. During extremely cold weather, if your root cellar is threatening to freeze, put a light bulb inside. Be sure to cover potatoes so they won’t turn green from exposure to light.
For more information on root cellars and the correct temperatures and humidity required for specific stored vegetables and fruits, go to the Montana Public Radio website and/or pick up our Building A Root Cellar handout at the Missoula Farmer’s Market Master Gardener Table.
Cold and Very moist 32-40°F and 90-95 % humidity Cold and Very Moist 32-40° F and 80 – 90% humidity 40-50°F and 85-90% humidity Cool & dry 35-40° and 60-70% humidity Moderately warm and dry 50-60° and 60-70% humidity
carrots Potatoes Cucumbers Garlic Dry hot peppers
beets Cabbage Sweet peppers onions Pumpkins
parsnips Apples Melons Winter squash
turnips pears Eggplant Green tomatoes
leeks Cauliflower* Ripe tomatoes
celery
Brussels sprouts*
Broccoli*
*short term
Helen Atthowe's new short program of gardening tips
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