You need a cool dry cellar, or you can build what is called a “Root Cellar.” In an earlier day this is how American’s dealt with the refrigeration problem so they were assured a fresh supply of fruits, vegetables and smoked or salted meat. A root cellar was also a good place to avoid summer heat and many of them were tricked out quite nicely. Their other use was often sheltering from tornados.

The best kind of root cellar is dug into a bank, but that is not necessary because you can also bury them on flat ground like digging a cellar hole. The better root cellars had two chambers where one was cooler then the other. The second chamber was for storing such items as potatoes, turnips, and apples.

Apples are a special case because as they ripen they gas off ethylene a gas that acts as a preservative and can be retained with the apples by sealing a small quantity of apples in a polyethylene bag. You can keep your apples fresh into the following summer using this method.

Potatoes and the other vegetables mentioned can be kept in a bin. It is also a great place to store canned goods whether they are home made or store bought. When he was a child the author grew up on a farm whose house had a cool cellar which we filled with various foodstuffs every fall.

The first chamber is used to store fruits and vegetables that are more tolerant of heat like, Hubbard or blue squash, pumpkins, cabbage, we always had a barrel of sauerkraut in one corner of the cellar. Cabbage is a vegetable that will keep well into the winter.

Ideally the temperature in a root cellar should hover around 40° F. there is a temperature gradient in a root cellar of about 10° F towards the ceiling. In this place you can store onions, shallots and garlic.

Be sure to keep the cellar dry, and don’t ever allow the temperature to go below the freezing mark which is 32° F or O° C. A great many other foodstuffs can be stored in a root cellar such as cider, wine, and dried foods.

Before you build a root cellar you should check with your local building officials to see if you need a building permit to build one.