BASIC TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL ROOT CELLARING

Root cellaring is not quite as simple as having a cool, dark place with good humidity and air circulation in which you store a bunch of fruits and vegetables.

It isn’t complicated, but you will need to include the following practices in your root cellar maintenance.

#01

Harvest vegetables, especially root vegetables, as late in the season as possible before cellaring them.
Be very careful when handling food that you intend to
Even minor scratches and bruises can lead to speedy
Do not wash root vegetables before putting them into cold storage; simply brush the dirt off of them.
Some foods such as potatoes, and winter squash including pumpkins, onions, shallots, and garlic need a drying-out or “curing” period before they are stored in a root cellar.
To do this, store them away from direct light at warmish room temperatures for a few days or as much as 2 weeks before transferring them to cold storage.

#02

Carefully examine each fruit or vegetable before putting it into cold
Those with bruises, skin breaks, or other blemishes could cause other produce that they are stored with to rot.
Ever heard the adage about “one rotten nut spoiling the whole barrel”?
It’s true!
Take a look at your cellared fruits and vegetables regularly and remove individual items that are showing any brown spots, mold, or other signs of spoilage.
Don’t throw them out, though.
There’s probably plenty of unspoiled food there to salvage for immediate eating, dehydrating, chutney making, and the like.

#03

Vegetables generate heat, which can cause spoilage when they are piled deep.
Try to store the food in a single or few layers, and rotate them every couple of weeks.
Pears and other fruits should be stored separately from vegetables.
They should also be loosely, and individually wrapped in paper.
The reason for both of these pieces of advice is to prevent the ethylene gas emitted by the fruits from speedily ripening adjacent foods or causing them to rot.

#04

Store brassicas including turnips and cabbage separately from other foods and don’t store them too close to your home.
This is not because of spoilage factors but rather because this group of vegetables has sulfur compounds that can create an unpleasant rotten egg smell
They will still taste fine when cooked, but you didn’t want your living room to smell?

#05

Your root cellar is not a good place to store your canned goods.
Home-canned jars need a cool but dry
The relatively high humidity of a root cellar can potentially unseal canning lids.
However, the cool, dry environment that home-canned goods need is an ideal environment for storing onions, shallots, and garlic.
Unlike most fruits and vegetables, those members of the Allium genus should not be stored in the high humidity of a root
A cool, dark, dry pantry is ideal for storing both your sealed jars of food and those bulb vegetables.
If you don’t have such a place in your home, prioritize the dark and dry over cool (a hallway closet will work).
If you need to store onions, shallots, or garlic in your root cellar, remember that the driest air will be farthest away from the door or opening and at the higher