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Folks, this one’s a keeper,
so get out your scissors and save it in your gardening library.
With cold weather upon us, everyone
should be working to save your harvest, either by storing or
preserving. Canning, drying, and freezing, are good ways of preserving
your crops such as beans, corn, peas, peppers, summer squash,
and tomatoes. They need to be done immediately after picking,
while crops are fresh and tasty. Whether you cold-store or preserve
your produce depends on the type of food you’ve grown, your
facilities, and your family’s eating preferences.
Cold storage of vegetables such
as cabbage, beets, carrots, potatoes, squash, and turnips can
give you the best tasting and healthiest food of the four methods,
and may even be the least expensive in the long run. And you
can eat every one of these garden-fresh even 4 to 6 months after
they’ve been harvested! However it requires some careful
preparation, so let’s discuss how best to prepare for and
store your fall harvest.
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If your garden is very small and
you don’t have much to store, you may be able to use an
old refrigerator, or a barrel buried in the back yard. However,
for those who are serious about providing fresh food for your
families, I recommend a root cellar, either under the house or
buried outside. You can set it into the side of a hill or dig
a hole 4’ to 5’ deep in a corner of the yard, build
the cellar, and cover it with the excess dirt. This will help
insulate it and maintain the low, but not freezing temperatures
you need. Provide yourself a small door and insulate it well.
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The drawing shows a 6’-tall
4’ X 6’ root cellar intended to be built under the
crawl space in a home with no basement.This same plan will work
in your yard. The wooden floor is optional, and at least half
the space may be better left open to the soil beneath.
Harvest your crops at peak maturity
and store only those which are free of disease or damage. Don’t
harvest for storage until late fall, since more starches are
converted to sugars by the cool weather. Root crops should be
picked fresh and stored immediately. Potatoes and squash, on
the other hand, first need to be cured at 60-75 degrees for 7
to 14 days. Most produce should be stored at just above freezing
temperatures, except winter squash, which does better at or above
50 degrees.
Your root crops will stay fresh
and sweet for months if you harvest them with roots intact and
pack them in wet sawdust. Cabbage and other brassicas also need
their roots. Remove outer leaves, then pack the roots in wet
sawdust, leaving the cabbage exposed. Provide separation between
crops to avoid mixing flavors, and to keep squash dry.
Potatoes should not be as wet
as the root crops. They will do well in temperatures below 40
degrees, but pack them in moist, rather than wet sawdust. Peatmoss
and sand, or combinations of all three, can be substituted for
straight sawdust, but are not as ideal. I recommend you work
with your neighbors to find a sawmill and obtain a truckload.
Onions and garlic also store
well. they can handle cold temperatures but, like winter squash,
they do better with humidity only 60 to 70 percent. Therefore
these should be up off the damp floor, on shelves or hung from
the ceiling. A cold basement can also work, but remember to provide
separation from living areas to avoid their strong smell.
Remember, cold temperatures are
essential for good long-term storage of produce, but do not let
them freeze! Insulate your root cellar well. Good healthy eating
to you! |
