Storing root Vegetable | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

One of the things I have been working on is storing food as low tech and energy free as possible. This means going back to the old ways, root cellaring.

I bought this book years ago and highly recommend it to anyone trying to do the same thing

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I finished packing away our carrots yesterday and this is how we did it. I started clearing out our beds a couple weeks ago

and was able to harvest a couple of 5 gallon buckets from a 4x4 bed. I had let them go a little to long and had some splitting, but the chickens really appreciated those ones

I usually let them set out for a couple weeks to let them rest, I then go through them and look them all over to see if any have degraded at all, if they do, these go to the chickens.

I picked up a bag of play sand, you can also use sawdust if you prefer

I start out by lining the buckets with a trash bag

and line the bottom with some sand

I pack the larger ones on the bottom, these will last the longest in storage, I try and make sure none are touching

and cover with sand

and just keep layering with carrots and sand

complete

and filled a second bucket

I don't tie off the bags, just fold them over to keep anything from getting into the sand and to allow the buckets to breath

and set them in my pantry

you can use this method for beets, turnips, rutabaga, parsnips, etc. Basically any root vegetable. Potatoes are fine to just sit in the bucket without any sand or sawdust. Make sure you keep away from apples and such due to ethylene off gassing which will cause the root veg to start sprouting. You want to keep them in a 40-50 degree temps ideally and keep them from freezing. If you don't have a root cellar a couple ideal spots would be in your cellar if it isn't heated and/or your attic. Usually a attic will maintain a cold enough temp without freezing, just make sure to double check its temp before you store anything up there. Peace