Building An Underground Root Cellar

Understand that the key elements of a root cellar have to do with temperature humidity and ventilation.

Building an underground root cellar.

Root cellars tap into those cool moist soil conditions and use them to store fruits and vegetables like your refrigerator produce bin. For those unfamiliar with the term a root cellar is an underground room that acts like a natural refrigerator maintaining temperatures in the mid 30 s f in the winter and mid 50 s in the summer. What is a root cellar. Pros and cons to using a root cellar.

Once you have the right location and conditions set up you just store your produce in baskets or buckets and leave as is in the cellar until you are ready to use them. Keep these three details in mind and the cellar can be built using just about any method. Building material options include native stone concrete cinder blocks earth packed tires or cedar logs for walk in root cellars. Perhaps it is time to build an underground root cellar.

A root cellar will save money for many years to come yet if you construct the cellar yourself the cost of building materials is less than a family would spend in one winter buying produce at. Dig a hole in the ground. Building a root cellar is a satisfying project for the do it yourself homeowner as the cost of materials is low and the cellar will last for decades. Dig a deep enough hole and you ll find that the ground is cool and often moist.

The perfect location for a root cellar is nestled into an existing soil bank in a well drained location 10 to 20 yards from your house. And yet to be able to build your own underground root cellar you need to know some basic and very important details. Wiki says a root cellar is a structure usually underground or partially underground used for storage of vegetables fruits nuts or other foods. Small underground food storage systems primarily consist of buried containers while larger setups typically include a separate building.

We decided that our little farm needed a root cellar to store our produce in. The biggest positive aspect of using a root cellar is the simplicity. Ideally the door should face north to keep out the sun s.