If gardeners find spring and summer to be about growing food, they find fall and winter to be more about storing food. The fall season brings bountiful harvest from your own garden as well as inexpensive prices from local farmers’ markets. In winter months, prices on produce inevitably rise. So it makes sense to store as much as you can while fresh produce is bountiful and cheap.
One of the oldest – and easiest — ways to preserve fresh fruits and vegetables through the winter months is with cold storage, also known as root cellaring. In fact, historical records indicate that the aboriginal people of Australia were using the technique of burying food in the ground to preserve it more than 40,000 years ago, and walk-in root cellars started to become popular in England in the 17th century.
What is a root cellar? A root cellar is simply an underground room used for preserving fruits and vegetables for several weeks or months. Many homes have them built into the basement, but they can also be structures separate from the home. The main features of these cellars is that they are cool in temperature, have an appropriate level of humidity and are well-ventilated.
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