Your pro-ragamuffin approach to living and growing and building is one of the most delightful inspirations of my UA-cam experience. Watching your channel has given me a huge surge of confidence in taking the next steps to move to food forest/permaculture homesteading on my land back home. Thank you for the goodness you send out into the world via UA-cam so regularly. It really matters.
I have a dark unfinished basement that I hate. I'm going to create a root cellar in a corner and I bet I'll start to enjoy it!! Thanks for the good idea!!
Something about seeing all of those canned goods on shelves is so exciting. The potato pallet shelves look really nice also. Have you guys ever tried storing root crops in sand?
We haven't tried storing in sand... Sand is super heavy and we'd have to buy it in so we're just doing it with sawdust for now. I've heard good things with moist sand.
very cool to hear about the sand, will definitely need to keep it in mind. Absolutely agreed though, seeing all of that food and the abundance you've managed to maintain is so exciting and encouraging Sean! Will definitely be referencing this amongst others when I go to build out mine.
Wow, that is really genius. I love that it is completely passive, no need for electric. No worries there at all. Fantastic ideas Sean! Thank you for sharing. You have a walk-in refrigerator for some traded materials. Gotta love that!
You have inspired me to start using my canning room in the basement, which came with the house. I used to grow cannabis in it, but now that I'm not growing indoor cannabis anymore, that room is the perfect place for a root cellar - canning room. Thanks for the tips bro!
I love this root caller just as it is. We have a tendency these days to make things more complicated, controlled and sanitary then it needs to be. Another vlog family i watch spent big dollars 8nstalling a walk-in cooler to store their root caller crops. It was a big failure. This is attainable.
This works super fine for what we need, kinda grimy a little in some ways but who cares, we have more food than we can eat for an entire winter down there detached from any grid dependence... Very fine with that.
Another very fine vid for food storage the root cellars. I grew up in a an area with the most root cellars in the world they say. I didn't grow up right here but just 15 minutes away and we also had our share of root cellars and used all the time. Not so much these days because people are spoiled and just want to run to the shop to buy every thing. lol , but there are still some being used. Don't live in this NL now moved away years ago but many family member back there. Maybe go back some day??? but my age now who knows??
That looks amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. I wish I had a basement or an outbuilding. Without those I try to grow what can keep outside in the ground - parsnips, beetroots, leeks, carrots, brassicas. All do ok outside in our mild UK winter. And winter squashes that can just be stored in the house. The only challenge is potatoes, which my family love to eat (I could just live on winter squash!) Potatoes get eaten by slugs here if left in the ground. So I’m going to experiment with creating a small in ground root cellar this year (out of a cracked water butt) and also with just leaving container grown maincrop potatoes in their container, to see if that would make any difference with the slug situation.
With a gentle winter like you have, you can really store most everything you want between the earth outside and a room in the house. Yeah, the potatoes could be tough. I hope you find a good in ground solution!
For several years now, I haven't bothered storing major amounts of carrots or parsnips. I just leave them in the ground and mulch heavily with leaves. It saves a lot of space and keeps them in spectacular condition - much better than when I've stored them in moist sand. Whenever we have a thaw, which we seem to see a lot more of these days in CNY, I just go out and harvest some. I harvested the last of them in March. Any left in the spring, I let go to seed for future planting. There is some minor critter predation, but nothing game changing. I don't have any experience doing it with radishes or turnips.
That is a very great and very natural system, and works wonderfully it seems... IF there aren't vole populations. With voles in our midst it is near impossible to store anything that way unfortunately :(
I love the simplicity of your root cellar build. We are in the process of building a small cabin that will have a basement similar to that specifically so that I could have a root cellar. Adding the insulated panels to the appropriate corner and piping cooler air in was brilliant! Thank you so much for the tour. Your veggies look great as I sit here wondering what to do with my sprouting potatoes :-( Next year will be better.
Very impressive simple root cellar setup! I have one thing to add: I noticed near the start of the video you showed your canned foods, many of which still had the rings on them. Some of them have the rings, and some don't, so maybe you're already aware of this, but leaving the rings on your canned foods can result in false seals and possible contamination. My understanding is that the cans appear to seal properly at first, but the seal ends up breaking for whatever reason. Then, because the ring is keeping the lid close to the jar, it ends up re-sealing but with possible botulism contamination. I know this just from internet research (confirmed before posting via browsing the results of "remove canning rings"), so don't take me for an expert on the subject, but I wanted to give you a heads-up just in case. Cheers!
Very cool and interesting. I have been looking at getting a deep freezer. This definitely is not that but has many other benefits. Now I just need a proper basement. Mines a bi level and my garage is my basement .
@@edibleacres I agree. What I found impressive is that it is huge, effective and rather simple. I don't know anybody with a comparable storage. Probably because less people have basements nowadays or they rely on supermarkets 🤷♀️
So look forward to experimenting with fermentation.....i suffer lower abdominal blockages on a regular basis and pickled and or fermented foods really seem to help. Anything to not have more stays in the hospital more than I already have had in the last 20 years.
I find that having living and fermented foods in orbit in our life, making their way as condiments are full on meal elements on a daily basis are a core part of keeping healthy and robust. We're made up of other beings, almost entirely other creatures and just a tiny bit us. We have a little say in those populations but we have to support them. Basic fermenting is pretty straight forward, I hope you get into it soon and start the healing!
Hi! Thank you for sharing amazing videos. How are you keeping the area humid? I remember your first video the humidity was around 50% so how did you increase it? Thanks!
We'll see what we can get Sasha to get into as far as sharing. She loves to share her ideas but isn't super comfortable on the camera... Keep an eye out, maybe we can talk her into it :)
Sasha is wonderful to watch on video, make sure you tell her please. More of Sasha and her input in the kitchen please, together you make one of the most interesting and calming video channels. Great work guys 😊 bless you both 🙏🏻
Woow that's a lovely stash you got there Also wow that cooling system is so simple and yet so amazing The longer I watch the more envious I get :D That potato stash is sweet too, good variety aswell
I actually just read an article about freezing water outside in Rubbermaid like totes (January and February) in blocks. You bring them into the basement asap after freezing and they will keep the space like a fridge all summer long. They talk about an ice chamber that you can stack them up in and set up trays for the very slow melt water collection. It would limit your summer space down there buuut it would be a passive fridge. Might be something to experiment with. I hear the cold is coming to us soon enough, soon. Might be an opp for a nice winter project.
Neat reminder of this idea. I've heard of this. I had a friend collect thousands of 2L soda bottles from a recycling center, make a super salt solution to fill each one (so they could hold more cold once frozen) and make a rack system for them in a hyper insulated side building under their barn, next to their main cooler. Could keep a large cooler refridge temp through an entire summer, without having to change the water out. Neat idea, a LOT of upfront work.
The only suggestion I would make is to get the input pipe closer to the floor. My basement is heated with leftover solar hot water heat, so it isn't appropriate for a root cellar. But I got a old door from my father and used it to close off the bulkhead (stairs to the outside). It is insulated above to keep the really cold temperatures out. I am currently working on getting the air flow improved (it is a bit warm 42°F, and a bit dry). You have inspired me to make a video, I will let you know when I get that done.
Cool, please do share! 42F isn't bad at all, you can store a ton of stuff in there for a while. Not ideal/perfect conditions are still super useful to store things for a while. Maybe you get one less month out of potatoes that could have lasted 8 months... just fine!
At 2:25 you begin to mention how you have a few pipes running into your basement. One going outside and the other connected into your wood stove, creating a vacuum. I'd be really interested to see how that works. Like, how do you connect that pipe into your wood stove as an air intake??
If you search 'wood stove' on our video page you can see a little more info on it. But most stoves have a 4" or 3" hole at the back that let you supply them with outside air. We routed a dryer duct section from outside to the stove, but then cut it in the root cellar so the stove pulls air in from the cellar and that is replaced with colder outside air.
Nice! I'm impressed. No basements here in Texas. I'm going to have to come up with something else. I have a few ideas that I will test. I can't dig very deep because the water table is high where I am. This is really year 2 for me so I still have a lot of systems that I need to put in place.
We can keep them cool and moist in sawdust like in the video or put them on racks over the woodstove and dry them down so they last for years and years as a staple grain crop. Sasha makes Chestnut polenta that is just exquisite from the dry nuts. They should be shelf stable for many years that way.
Quite possibly. Get a thermometer that tells you highs and lows. If you aren't going crazy below freezing that's a reasonable place to start. Some insulation and framing out a small dedicated area for storage... you can experiment and learn for sure!
Wow! I think i will copy those stacking nut storage trays! Mine are in glass right now, not ideal. It looks simple enough, but do you have a video on how to cut and assemble them?
I'm not sure if we have a video on that, you can search 'nut' on our video list and find some references I'm sure. Basic idea is rodent proof bottoms and decent sides, stackable, and it works nicely for us.
The air coming in isn't passive. It is driven by the heat of your wood stove and the air going up the flue. Our Earth-air tubes work in a similar way. When the wood stove is going (less than yours since we are in balmy Kentucky,) it draws tempered air into the house through the tubes. The active part is the fire and chimney draw.
Gotcha. I think what I was meaning is that there is no fan or pump or element we have to drive to make it move... I hear what you are saying, since the stove is a very active vacuum of air when it's running. Kinda crazy how much air moves through it. Glad the 'leaks' are down in the root cellar where want our cold air rather than through every window and door where we live! Long live the external air intake for a wood stove! :)
@@edibleacres I wanted to make the point mostly so that folks who want to create something like that get the airflow right. I wouldn't want them to go to all the trouble and not realize the wood stove is what is driving the airflow. 😊😎
Doesn't matter I don't think BUT ideal would be probably a nice mild hardwood if you can find it, maple, ash, etc. Don't be too picky but you can ask :)
I've read that fruit (apples, pears, quince, and medlar were typically stored in root cellars) and roots/vegetables don't play nice together. (I get more excited about the fruit, but recognize that the other stuff may be more important to my nutrition.). Fruit often releases ethene, which is the senescence hormone in plants and can cause other stuff to spoil faster. Supposedly vegetables can transfer some of there flavors through the air, giving fruit an off flavor. (eg The Skillcult guy complains that his apples "taste like refrigerator" [presumably stored in a fridge rather than a cellar, but probably the same cause is at work; he is in N. California and probably doesn't have enough winter to make a cellar work well]. What methods of separation do you think would be sufficient to safely have both a root/vegetable cellar and a fruit cellar?
I can't exactly say on that... We haven't had major issues there and stored a bunch of apples in there last year. I think the key is to have decent air flow happening... The inlets from the outside drop cold air down which stirs things and the warmer air above (presumably loaded with the ethelene?) is drawn off and burnt up in the wood stove in our case. In yours perhaps a computer fan to stir air or draw off warm air at the top into the basement would be reasonable?
@@tinnerste2507 Yes, I have had some success with stratifying outdoors, but seed predation can be an issue without enough protection. I'm also dealing with relatively few seeds so I like to keep them safe. Squirrels are mischievous sometimes!
@@Jabberwalks fair call, i dont have much pest pressure on seedlings here in the forest when they are close to the house, but ghere are no grey squirels here either!
Love this idea. I’ve got high GW around my basement and need to keep a dehumidifier running down there to prevent mold. The dehumidifier ends up heating the space up to the 50s F. Any thoughts on how I could modify your design for my context? I have a small window near the NE corner, I’m thinking I could partition that off and possibly that could be enough to prevent the dehumidifier from affecting the area too much.
If you box off and insulate one area, that could have the higher humidity which would help the crops you are trying to store, and be separate from teh rest of the basement. A little computer fan or other to 'stir' the air in there would be quite helpful.
Sean, I’m re-visiting this video and am wondering if you and Sasha water bath can your tomatoes, or use a pressure canner? Pressure canning feels a bit scary, so we’re trying to figure out if we can get away with the water bath method this year.
Seems worth trying. Set up a temperature gauge so you can see what happens and adjust as needed. So long as you don't hit super low temps I bet this would be a great solution path.
@@edibleacres Great idea to test an area before investing a lot of money. Those inexpensive min/mx thermometers are worth the price now that I am finding more uses for them. Thanks!
What do you do for the lean months in spring when your root. Cellar is depleted and/or no longer viable because of warming but your plants still haven't produced a new crop? Do you plan for that or just rely on the grocery store?
There is a solid overlap between the sweet potatoes, garlic, winter squash and more that are stable in our storage in a room upstairs, along with the remaining potatoes that are in decent shape in the root cellar meet up and merge with the earliest spring greens like stinging nettles, dandelion, spring onions, good king henry and other greens. With good quality ferments, etc., there isn't much of a lull..
In the root cellar itself there is actually decent air movement because the tubes going to the outside let the very cold/dry air of winter drop into the space. That displaces the warm moist air a bit and the woodstove having it's intake port being at the top of the space siphons off the warm/moist air. It works out decently well in that configuration to keep molds down for the most part.
I should have addressed that... If we get 10F or lower, it can get frosty in there. Easy fix... 'off' switches on the tubes... Which are just pieces of plastic over them with rubber bands to hold them on :) Has worked down to -10F :)
do you have any tips for making black walnuts taste better? I hear people detect different flavors...the jugullone or whatever alkaloid that jumps out to my taste bud kinda tastes like acetone. I want to like it, but it tastes weird lol
I think they need to be collected relatively fresh, not super old and blackened with goo... THe longer they are in the husk the more intense the flavor... That, and once cleaned they need to dry and then cure for a few months before the flavors get there. I'd keep experimenting.
We burn firewood that I harvest so our heating costs are less than $20 a winter... That said I insulated the ceiling in this space so hopefully that is a little helpful.
The beauty is that in the warm months we don't need this storage for winter crops, because everything is actively growing. We have a fridge upstairs and a chest freezer, too... It's not like this is the only way we store things.
@@edibleacres i have bought 4 different seeds that were supposed to be them,but weren't. i've heard it called chinese cabbage,napa cabbage,machilli(sp?) cabbage but the seeds i ordered never jive.. i would sure love to know what it is,because i love this cut into ribbons as a salad,but i want to grow my own.
Wow, this is so cool.. Will it work and be safe for places where temp is below -10C? We live in Canada and winter gets to max of -35C around here.. So I am wondering if it will be safe to have a root cellar made this way in the basement..
Yes, will definitely work.. If it gets super cold you can make an 'off' valve in the form of a wrapper or cap. I just put a bag over the tube with a rubber band, good to down to -10F...
Any pallet we take needs to have 'HT' printed somewhere on it... That means 'heat treated' which supposedly means there are no chemicals used in the manufacture of them.
How important is it for the carrots and potatoes to be open to the air? My root cellar is kept cool with ground water and i cant completely seal it from rodents. Would a foodgrade drum store these roots if its opened a few times a week? Or would that cause mold? My root veg dries out in my kitchen but im afraid it will just rot in my root cellar. Does anyone here have a springhouse or moist storage kellar?
I've seen this too... I think maybe they went dormant a little in the garden and then thought it was warm enough to start re-growing for their year 2 and made this side root hairs in our case, maybe thats what happened to you?
@@edibleacres may be, the weather had been a lot cooler here in Missouri than it was last year. We have had cold then mild. I harvested them just before Christmas.
I guess I could think that way, and maybe there is a real concern there, I don't know. But I'd rather share and show these ideas with the hopes that many more people start to store more food where they live and valuable seeds that are incredibly useful so we all have more resilience. Feels like a calculated risk that seems reasonable to me. I trust that my intention will be a little bit protective, rather than hoarding/bragging about the situation or not helping others feel empowered to do it themselves.
There is something going on with grocery store produce I think. My homegrown potatoes last for months. If i get a bag of potatoes from walmart half are rotten after a week
@@pokeweed10k15 Maybe because many grocery store products are full with water to increase the weight/price. Best example are tomatoes. Also maybe the industrial production, washing and transport reduces their longevity. And who knows how "fresh" the veggies are, when they arrive in the store?! Another aspect might be the micro nutrients which are low in grocery store veggies (chemical fertilizer), so that the veggie cannot keep in shape? After all, veggies are living organisms and they will "die" faster when they are starving. All just my theories on your interesting observation, not sure if I made any valid point here.
@@pokeweed10k15 Supermarkets are awful. Through 'standardisation' of sizes it was a total shock to me as someone who used to live in Britain, where they've choked out nearly all the small farmer and market competition, that when I moved to Poland I was blown away by how much bigger and tastier vegetables are. The corporations are trying to trounce the small farmers here, but because people still have land from soviet times, the markets still have a lot of good produce. I only realised why a tomato is a fruit when I came here. In Britain they're rigid, not juicy and very little flavour.
@@-TimZambra I know the way they vigorously clean them to look good has an effect. I believe a lot of produce sits around for a long time too. I heard that the average apple at the grocery store is 6 months old. Then theres the fact that they mist the vegetables for appearance too, and being constantly damp effects freshness for sure
Yeah guys! YEAh! thats the stuff right there. man I so want to move to your region, but my wife not having it! lower NYS for us. Im known as the failed farmer, or do it again dad. lol
Your pro-ragamuffin approach to living and growing and building is one of the most delightful inspirations of my UA-cam experience. Watching your channel has given me a huge surge of confidence in taking the next steps to move to food forest/permaculture homesteading on my land back home. Thank you for the goodness you send out into the world via UA-cam so regularly. It really matters.
It's reading comments like these that keep the motivation high to make videos and continue to share. Thanks for being part of our community!
"pro-ragamuffin"
Sasha is amazing! You really found your soul mate. That canning is so much work. Please tell her how wonderful she is.
I just did :)
I have a dark unfinished basement that I hate. I'm going to create a root cellar in a corner and I bet I'll start to enjoy it!! Thanks for the good idea!!
A great solution for an area that you haven't used. Have fun building your root cellar and stocking it!
Something about seeing all of those canned goods on shelves is so exciting. The potato pallet shelves look really nice also. Have you guys ever tried storing root crops in sand?
We haven't tried storing in sand... Sand is super heavy and we'd have to buy it in so we're just doing it with sawdust for now. I've heard good things with moist sand.
@@edibleacres carrots keep amazingly crisp all season in the sand.
very cool to hear about the sand, will definitely need to keep it in mind. Absolutely agreed though, seeing all of that food and the abundance you've managed to maintain is so exciting and encouraging Sean! Will definitely be referencing this amongst others when I go to build out mine.
What a fantastic root store, GOALS!
Wow, that is really genius. I love that it is completely passive, no need for electric. No worries there at all. Fantastic ideas Sean! Thank you for sharing. You have a walk-in refrigerator for some traded materials. Gotta love that!
This is genius! You are one clever fella! Really enjoying watching your ingenuity…thank you for sharing all of this with us
Thank you.
You have inspired me to start using my canning room in the basement, which came with the house. I used to grow cannabis in it, but now that I'm not growing indoor cannabis anymore, that room is the perfect place for a root cellar - canning room. Thanks for the tips bro!
Higher value anyway! The cannabis woudl be much happier outside :)
Great food storage area. I cook my cabbage in the slow cooker with a little olive oil. It is really easy and brings out the sweetness in the cabbage.
Sounds like a nice way to do it
I love this root caller just as it is. We have a tendency these days to make things more complicated, controlled and sanitary then it needs to be. Another vlog family i watch spent big dollars 8nstalling a walk-in cooler to store their root caller crops. It was a big failure. This is attainable.
This works super fine for what we need, kinda grimy a little in some ways but who cares, we have more food than we can eat for an entire winter down there detached from any grid dependence... Very fine with that.
This is inspiring! Great that your heating system helps to drive your cooling system.
Once helped a friend clear out a root cellar which had 800 jars that had been there about a decade.
Did you try anything?
Another very fine vid for food storage the root cellars. I grew up in a an area with the most root cellars in the world they say. I didn't grow up right here but just 15 minutes away and we also had our share of root cellars and used all the time. Not so much these days because people are spoiled and just want to run to the shop to buy every thing. lol , but there are still some being used. Don't live in this NL now moved away years ago but many family member back there. Maybe go back some day??? but my age now who knows??
It would be really neat to learn from folks who have had root cellars their whole lives, I feel like we have SO much more to learn!
That looks amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. I wish I had a basement or an outbuilding. Without those I try to grow what can keep outside in the ground - parsnips, beetroots, leeks, carrots, brassicas. All do ok outside in our mild UK winter. And winter squashes that can just be stored in the house. The only challenge is potatoes, which my family love to eat (I could just live on winter squash!) Potatoes get eaten by slugs here if left in the ground. So I’m going to experiment with creating a small in ground root cellar this year (out of a cracked water butt) and also with just leaving container grown maincrop potatoes in their container, to see if that would make any difference with the slug situation.
With a gentle winter like you have, you can really store most everything you want between the earth outside and a room in the house. Yeah, the potatoes could be tough. I hope you find a good in ground solution!
For several years now, I haven't bothered storing major amounts of carrots or parsnips. I just leave them in the ground and mulch heavily with leaves. It saves a lot of space and keeps them in spectacular condition - much better than when I've stored them in moist sand.
Whenever we have a thaw, which we seem to see a lot more of these days in CNY, I just go out and harvest some. I harvested the last of them in March. Any left in the spring, I let go to seed for future planting. There is some minor critter predation, but nothing game changing.
I don't have any experience doing it with radishes or turnips.
That is a very great and very natural system, and works wonderfully it seems... IF there aren't vole populations. With voles in our midst it is near impossible to store anything that way unfortunately :(
Yes. I don't get vole pressure here, just chipmunks and squirrels, as far as rodents go.
I remember the root cellar we had on the farm. Canned lots and lots of food. Thanks for a great tour and tips!!
You are so welcome!
I love the simplicity of your root cellar build. We are in the process of building a small cabin that will have a basement similar to that specifically so that I could have a root cellar. Adding the insulated panels to the appropriate corner and piping cooler air in was brilliant! Thank you so much for the tour. Your veggies look great as I sit here wondering what to do with my sprouting potatoes :-( Next year will be better.
Sounds like some great upgrades are in your future. Best of luck with your projects!
@@edibleacres Thank you
Great storage! Inspiring!
Woow, amazing job!
You are reading my mind, im modifing a room to have my seeds and wines, and this is amazing
Enjoy!
Very impressive simple root cellar setup! I have one thing to add: I noticed near the start of the video you showed your canned foods, many of which still had the rings on them. Some of them have the rings, and some don't, so maybe you're already aware of this, but leaving the rings on your canned foods can result in false seals and possible contamination. My understanding is that the cans appear to seal properly at first, but the seal ends up breaking for whatever reason. Then, because the ring is keeping the lid close to the jar, it ends up re-sealing but with possible botulism contamination.
I know this just from internet research (confirmed before posting via browsing the results of "remove canning rings"), so don't take me for an expert on the subject, but I wanted to give you a heads-up just in case. Cheers!
Thanks for the info Charlie
Great reminder here. We are aware of this and often Sasha removes the rings, but this is a nice reminder to take off the rest!
Very cool and interesting. I have been looking at getting a deep freezer. This definitely is not that but has many other benefits. Now I just need a proper basement. Mines a bi level and my garage is my basement .
YOu may still be able to make something work for yourself in a corner of the garage...
The radishes are just dehydrated a little. Put them in moist saw dust and they will firm up!
Good note, thank you.
Very impressive storage system! 👍
Thanks. I think it's less about impressive and more about really accessible and replicable. At least thats the hope in sharing this.
@@edibleacres I agree. What I found impressive is that it is huge, effective and rather simple. I don't know anybody with a comparable storage. Probably because less people have basements nowadays or they rely on supermarkets 🤷♀️
So look forward to experimenting with fermentation.....i suffer lower abdominal blockages on a regular basis and pickled and or fermented foods really seem to help. Anything to not have more stays in the hospital more than I already have had in the last 20 years.
I find that having living and fermented foods in orbit in our life, making their way as condiments are full on meal elements on a daily basis are a core part of keeping healthy and robust. We're made up of other beings, almost entirely other creatures and just a tiny bit us. We have a little say in those populations but we have to support them. Basic fermenting is pretty straight forward, I hope you get into it soon and start the healing!
Hi! Thank you for sharing amazing videos. How are you keeping the area humid? I remember your first video the humidity was around 50% so how did you increase it? Thanks!
Very clever
Wow amazing job. Thanks for share and stay Free.
So excited to watch this video!
This is incredible. Might Sasha or you consider running through what preserves you have and more recipes? 😍
We'll see what we can get Sasha to get into as far as sharing. She loves to share her ideas but isn't super comfortable on the camera... Keep an eye out, maybe we can talk her into it :)
Sasha is wonderful to watch on video, make sure you tell her please. More of Sasha and her input in the kitchen please, together you make one of the most interesting and calming video channels. Great work guys 😊 bless you both 🙏🏻
Woow that's a lovely stash you got there
Also wow that cooling system is so simple and yet so amazing
The longer I watch the more envious I get :D That potato stash is sweet too, good variety aswell
We're really happy to have that space, makes us feel pretty secure to walk in there and think about how many meals we have until spring.
Very excellent root cellar indeed, thank you so much for the update on this!
Glad ya like it!
I actually just read an article about freezing water outside in Rubbermaid like totes (January and February) in blocks. You bring them into the basement asap after freezing and they will keep the space like a fridge all summer long. They talk about an ice chamber that you can stack them up in and set up trays for the very slow melt water collection. It would limit your summer space down there buuut it would be a passive fridge. Might be something to experiment with. I hear the cold is coming to us soon enough, soon. Might be an opp for a nice winter project.
That's a neat idea. I wonder how much ice it would require to keep a cellar of that size cool for the summer?
Neat reminder of this idea. I've heard of this. I had a friend collect thousands of 2L soda bottles from a recycling center, make a super salt solution to fill each one (so they could hold more cold once frozen) and make a rack system for them in a hyper insulated side building under their barn, next to their main cooler. Could keep a large cooler refridge temp through an entire summer, without having to change the water out. Neat idea, a LOT of upfront work.
The only suggestion I would make is to get the input pipe closer to the floor.
My basement is heated with leftover solar hot water heat, so it isn't appropriate for a root cellar. But I got a old door from my father and used it to close off the bulkhead (stairs to the outside). It is insulated above to keep the really cold temperatures out. I am currently working on getting the air flow improved (it is a bit warm 42°F, and a bit dry). You have inspired me to make a video, I will let you know when I get that done.
Cool, please do share! 42F isn't bad at all, you can store a ton of stuff in there for a while. Not ideal/perfect conditions are still super useful to store things for a while. Maybe you get one less month out of potatoes that could have lasted 8 months... just fine!
Wow!! Absolutely beautiful!!!
Beautiful!
At 2:25 you begin to mention how you have a few pipes running into your basement. One going outside and the other connected into your wood stove, creating a vacuum. I'd be really interested to see how that works. Like, how do you connect that pipe into your wood stove as an air intake??
If you search 'wood stove' on our video page you can see a little more info on it. But most stoves have a 4" or 3" hole at the back that let you supply them with outside air. We routed a dryer duct section from outside to the stove, but then cut it in the root cellar so the stove pulls air in from the cellar and that is replaced with colder outside air.
@@edibleacres that's genius. Thanks for getting back to me.
Nice! I'm impressed. No basements here in Texas. I'm going to have to come up with something else. I have a few ideas that I will test. I can't dig very deep because the water table is high where I am. This is really year 2 for me so I still have a lot of systems that I need to put in place.
If you have mild winters you may be able to store a lot just in the ground outside.
I've been wondering how folks store chestnuts to make them a more viable staple, without using crazy amounts of energy. Very cool, thanks for sharing!
We can keep them cool and moist in sawdust like in the video or put them on racks over the woodstove and dry them down so they last for years and years as a staple grain crop. Sasha makes Chestnut polenta that is just exquisite from the dry nuts. They should be shelf stable for many years that way.
This looks very cool Ill have to try it out
Could always be a smaller area to test and learn first, doesn't have to be a large room set off..
Do you think something like this could be accomplished in an unattached garage? We're in south central Indiana.
Quite possibly. Get a thermometer that tells you highs and lows. If you aren't going crazy below freezing that's a reasonable place to start. Some insulation and framing out a small dedicated area for storage... you can experiment and learn for sure!
This is great! thank you for sharing!
Simple, low tech but awesome!
Wow! I think i will copy those stacking nut storage trays! Mine are in glass right now, not ideal. It looks simple enough, but do you have a video on how to cut and assemble them?
I'm not sure if we have a video on that, you can search 'nut' on our video list and find some references I'm sure. Basic idea is rodent proof bottoms and decent sides, stackable, and it works nicely for us.
@@edibleacres cheers!
The air coming in isn't passive. It is driven by the heat of your wood stove and the air going up the flue. Our Earth-air tubes work in a similar way. When the wood stove is going (less than yours since we are in balmy Kentucky,) it draws tempered air into the house through the tubes. The active part is the fire and chimney draw.
Gotcha. I think what I was meaning is that there is no fan or pump or element we have to drive to make it move... I hear what you are saying, since the stove is a very active vacuum of air when it's running. Kinda crazy how much air moves through it. Glad the 'leaks' are down in the root cellar where want our cold air rather than through every window and door where we live! Long live the external air intake for a wood stove! :)
@@edibleacres I wanted to make the point mostly so that folks who want to create something like that get the airflow right. I wouldn't want them to go to all the trouble and not realize the wood stove is what is driving the airflow. 😊😎
Very smart! 🌱🌱🌱
How do you utilize this space in the warmer months?
It is pretty unused in the peak of summer months.
Do your canned jars ever freeze? Really great storage.
No, the jars are in the main basement which never dips below 50F or so.
Wow.. great idea! Definitely inspired by this! Do nights ever get so cold that air coming from the tubes makes the root cellar too cold?
Sorry i have since read the comments and my question was answered.... thanks for the ideas!!
Thanks for sharing! Many good ideas. How do you keep the rodents from eating all the open food?
He put mesh over the cold air pipes so they can't come in. Since they can't come in, they can't eat his food.
We also have cats that go in and hang out sometimes.
What are the conditions like in this space during summer and the rest of the warm season?
Pretty unused for the hot months, we could probably figure a use but haven' tyet
As far as sawdust goes for storing vegetables....does it matter the tree variety? Hardwood vs conifer?
Doesn't matter I don't think BUT ideal would be probably a nice mild hardwood if you can find it, maple, ash, etc. Don't be too picky but you can ask :)
I've read that fruit (apples, pears, quince, and medlar were typically stored in root cellars) and roots/vegetables don't play nice together. (I get more excited about the fruit, but recognize that the other stuff may be more important to my nutrition.). Fruit often releases ethene, which is the senescence hormone in plants and can cause other stuff to spoil faster. Supposedly vegetables can transfer some of there flavors through the air, giving fruit an off flavor. (eg The Skillcult guy complains that his apples "taste like refrigerator" [presumably stored in a fridge rather than a cellar, but probably the same cause is at work; he is in N. California and probably doesn't have enough winter to make a cellar work well]. What methods of separation do you think would be sufficient to safely have both a root/vegetable cellar and a fruit cellar?
I can't exactly say on that... We haven't had major issues there and stored a bunch of apples in there last year. I think the key is to have decent air flow happening... The inlets from the outside drop cold air down which stirs things and the warmer air above (presumably loaded with the ethelene?) is drawn off and burnt up in the wood stove in our case. In yours perhaps a computer fan to stir air or draw off warm air at the top into the basement would be reasonable?
I love it!
when it gets to hot in there during the summer where do you move the cellar goodies to???....
Canned and dried material can hang out on shelves in the main basement no problem. The root cellar goes 'offline' unti lfall again.
@@edibleacres so the root cellar is only used during the colder/winter months?
What do your summer time temps run in there?
It is 'offline' in the summer, and I woudl guess it's in the upper 50F range to low 60s when it's peak summer.
I wish we had a root cellar but with sandy soil in earthquake country, we'll have to use something else. so here we do freezers with back up gens.
That would be a really nice setup for stratifying seeds. I need something to keep me from taking up too much space in the fridge with bags of soil.
It is incredible for cold moist stratifying of seeds. Plenty of room for both needs in this space, all without electricity.
Can you not just leave them outside in pots with a board ontop? It works for me!
@@tinnerste2507 Yes, I have had some success with stratifying outdoors, but seed predation can be an issue without enough protection. I'm also dealing with relatively few seeds so I like to keep them safe. Squirrels are mischievous sometimes!
@@Jabberwalks fair call, i dont have much pest pressure on seedlings here in the forest when they are close to the house, but ghere are no grey squirels here either!
That’s awesome 🤩
Do you use the reusable Tattler lids for canning? Can't quite see from the video
She's got a few different types she works with, and I've seen Tattler in the mix.
Love this idea. I’ve got high GW around my basement and need to keep a dehumidifier running down there to prevent mold. The dehumidifier ends up heating the space up to the 50s F. Any thoughts on how I could modify your design for my context? I have a small window near the NE corner, I’m thinking I could partition that off and possibly that could be enough to prevent the dehumidifier from affecting the area too much.
If you box off and insulate one area, that could have the higher humidity which would help the crops you are trying to store, and be separate from teh rest of the basement. A little computer fan or other to 'stir' the air in there would be quite helpful.
Sean, I’m re-visiting this video and am wondering if you and Sasha water bath can your tomatoes, or use a pressure canner? Pressure canning feels a bit scary, so we’re trying to figure out if we can get away with the water bath method this year.
We'll have to document Sasha's process but I believe for tomato and other high acid canning she does hot water bath canning
@@edibleacres thank you so much! Great to know.
Pretty cool
Ive waited all year for this vid lol
Hope it was worth the wait
@@edibleacres best cellar vid yet. I should have one soon once i waterproof a bit
Cellar question! I’m in zone 6a do you think I could turn my outdoor shed into a cold cellar? Thanks again for the great videos
Seems worth trying. Set up a temperature gauge so you can see what happens and adjust as needed. So long as you don't hit super low temps I bet this would be a great solution path.
@@edibleacres Great idea to test an area before investing a lot of money. Those inexpensive min/mx thermometers are worth the price now that I am finding more uses for them. Thanks!
What do you do for the lean months in spring when your root. Cellar is depleted and/or no longer viable because of warming but your plants still haven't produced a new crop? Do you plan for that or just rely on the grocery store?
There is a solid overlap between the sweet potatoes, garlic, winter squash and more that are stable in our storage in a room upstairs, along with the remaining potatoes that are in decent shape in the root cellar meet up and merge with the earliest spring greens like stinging nettles, dandelion, spring onions, good king henry and other greens. With good quality ferments, etc., there isn't much of a lull..
I dehydrate and can food, its still good then regardless of the weather. But im watching this video to increase my fresh food storage.
Biochar and compost?
Do you have any mold issues? How does one avoid mold growth in an environment like this?
In the root cellar itself there is actually decent air movement because the tubes going to the outside let the very cold/dry air of winter drop into the space. That displaces the warm moist air a bit and the woodstove having it's intake port being at the top of the space siphons off the warm/moist air. It works out decently well in that configuration to keep molds down for the most part.
Just curious, does it never turn into a root freezer?
I should have addressed that... If we get 10F or lower, it can get frosty in there. Easy fix... 'off' switches on the tubes... Which are just pieces of plastic over them with rubber bands to hold them on :) Has worked down to -10F :)
do you have any tips for making black walnuts taste better? I hear people detect different flavors...the jugullone or whatever alkaloid that jumps out to my taste bud kinda tastes like acetone. I want to like it, but it tastes weird lol
I think they need to be collected relatively fresh, not super old and blackened with goo... THe longer they are in the husk the more intense the flavor... That, and once cleaned they need to dry and then cure for a few months before the flavors get there. I'd keep experimenting.
how does the root cellar affect your heating costs in the winter?
We burn firewood that I harvest so our heating costs are less than $20 a winter... That said I insulated the ceiling in this space so hopefully that is a little helpful.
do you use this area only during winter?
Mainly useful in the fall through spring.
What about warmer months? You must have a cooler?
The beauty is that in the warm months we don't need this storage for winter crops, because everything is actively growing. We have a fridge upstairs and a chest freezer, too... It's not like this is the only way we store things.
@@edibleacres i had in mind some charcuteria😀👍
Time to add a cheese section! Nothing quite like home made cheese.
That would be a nice next step, and a place for the deer prosciutto :)
could you tell me what the actual name is for the chinese cabbages? I have seen these called half a dozen names.
I don't have an actual name for them, but know of them as heading cabbage that is Chinese.
@@edibleacres i have bought 4 different seeds that were supposed to be them,but weren't. i've heard it called chinese cabbage,napa cabbage,machilli(sp?) cabbage but the seeds i ordered never jive.. i would sure love to know what it is,because i love this cut into ribbons as a salad,but i want to grow my own.
Wow, this is so cool.. Will it work and be safe for places where temp is below -10C? We live in Canada and winter gets to max of -35C around here.. So I am wondering if it will be safe to have a root cellar made this way in the basement..
Yes, will definitely work.. If it gets super cold you can make an 'off' valve in the form of a wrapper or cap. I just put a bag over the tube with a rubber band, good to down to -10F...
@@edibleacres Thank you so much, very useful info..
Looks great guys......um country folk can survive and that's why☺
What’s the temperature in a root cellar
Are you super selective with your pallet wood re preservatives? Thanks
Any pallet we take needs to have 'HT' printed somewhere on it... That means 'heat treated' which supposedly means there are no chemicals used in the manufacture of them.
Do you eat 100% of what you grow in a year? Do you ever go to a grocery store for supplemental needs, or just barter ?
We buy stuff. Not a whole lot, but we definitely buy butter, salt, sugar, cheese, rice, and some other things.
how do you keep roaches from finding their way in?
We haven't had that issue so I'm not sure how to answer.
@@edibleacres ah, I live in the south, so they are more prolific here I suppose
How important is it for the carrots and potatoes to be open to the air? My root cellar is kept cool with ground water and i cant completely seal it from rodents. Would a foodgrade drum store these roots if its opened a few times a week? Or would that cause mold? My root veg dries out in my kitchen but im afraid it will just rot in my root cellar. Does anyone here have a springhouse or moist storage kellar?
You can only learn by trying... Something to consider is a wire mesh or other protection to keep rodents out.
@@edibleacres cheers for the tips! I think there is some aluminuim no rust windowscreens on sale at the home repair shop.
How do you prevent mold from growing on the basement walls and floor with that set up?
I think there is enough air movement because of the tubes bringing in cold air and the stove siphoning off the top air.
Eric`s channel ?
ua-cam.com/users/jkochosc - Good info and a great friend.
Do you know of a good company or farm from which we could order organic bulk grains for our chickens?
I'm not sure on that... You'd want to find something local to you, I'd ask around a bit and I'm sure you'd find a good solution.
Fingers crossed
This fall my carrots were covered in hair like roots. What causes this.
I've seen this too... I think maybe they went dormant a little in the garden and then thought it was warm enough to start re-growing for their year 2 and made this side root hairs in our case, maybe thats what happened to you?
@@edibleacres may be, the weather had been a lot cooler here in Missouri than it was last year. We have had cold then mild. I harvested them just before Christmas.
Beautiful!
Do you feel any security risk sharing the details of your food and nursery storage?
I guess I could think that way, and maybe there is a real concern there, I don't know. But I'd rather share and show these ideas with the hopes that many more people start to store more food where they live and valuable seeds that are incredibly useful so we all have more resilience. Feels like a calculated risk that seems reasonable to me. I trust that my intention will be a little bit protective, rather than hoarding/bragging about the situation or not helping others feel empowered to do it themselves.
if you let a few carrots grow tops they might flower and give you seeds
We may transplant some carrots back into a high tunnel this spring so we can get seeds from them...
Ferment those black radishes now! They are delicious that way.
Please look into solar air heater/coolers on yt. made from soda cans 👍😆
Berry the root veggies in sand is best
What's a basement, asks the guy in the Florida Panhandle... :)
Could you build a shed and bury it above ground, or cover it with earth? Ive seen them sort of built into hills?
@@tinnerste2507 The thought has occurred to me, and may get around to trying it.
@@dans3718 let me know if you do! Im sure it will come up again in some permaculture project here!
Sasha is a kitchen witch.
A beautiful kitchen sorceress...
If vegetables last so long in a cellar, I'm starting to wonder why we're all so dependent on fridges.
There is something going on with grocery store produce I think. My homegrown potatoes last for months. If i get a bag of potatoes from walmart half are rotten after a week
@@pokeweed10k15 Maybe because many grocery store products are full with water to increase the weight/price. Best example are tomatoes.
Also maybe the industrial production, washing and transport reduces their longevity. And who knows how "fresh" the veggies are, when they arrive in the store?! Another aspect might be the micro nutrients which are low in grocery store veggies (chemical fertilizer), so that the veggie cannot keep in shape? After all, veggies are living organisms and they will "die" faster when they are starving. All just my theories on your interesting observation, not sure if I made any valid point here.
@@pokeweed10k15 Supermarkets are awful. Through 'standardisation' of sizes it was a total shock to me as someone who used to live in Britain, where they've choked out nearly all the small farmer and market competition, that when I moved to Poland I was blown away by how much bigger and tastier vegetables are. The corporations are trying to trounce the small farmers here, but because people still have land from soviet times, the markets still have a lot of good produce. I only realised why a tomato is a fruit when I came here. In Britain they're rigid, not juicy and very little flavour.
So it wouldn't surprise me at all if the supermarkets were doing something to the vegetables in the west. Lord in heaven how depressing if that's so.
@@-TimZambra I know the way they vigorously clean them to look good has an effect. I believe a lot of produce sits around for a long time too. I heard that the average apple at the grocery store is 6 months old. Then theres the fact that they mist the vegetables for appearance too, and being constantly damp effects freshness for sure
Yeah guys! YEAh! thats the stuff right there. man I so want to move to your region, but my wife not having it! lower NYS for us. Im known as the failed farmer, or do it again dad. lol
We make a ton of mistakes and have to figure things out from scratch over and over, it's all part of the process :)
I think your biggest problem will be to eat all of that! Cheers!
It is actually. We need to figure out sharing/donating/trading more of all our crops going forward.