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Storing Root Vegetables Over the Winter
This Stellar's Jay comes to the bird feeder each day along with a Magpie and three Whiskey Jacks. In - 25 Cel they are all puffed up trying to keep warm. This bird has white over it's one eye. Can't tell if it is frozen ice or what. Been on it for a week.
Every month the root vegetables have to be checked for spoilage. This includes the apples, oranges, lemons, onions, cabbages, carrots, beets and last the turnip and kohlrabi.
Vikki had sealed this normal bag and look at the mess. All of it headed to the compost. In the fall we had cut the tops ofs the carrots down 1/4" into carrot and should also have cut off the tips because they have started to rot.
We tried storing them in these "Keep your vegetables fresher longer" bags. We closed the bag and it started a lot of spoilage. Now these carrots were rewashed and dried and the bags rewashed and dried and the bag is being left open this time. We will see what has happens by next check up time.
These are all stored under the cabin in a crawl space which is about -4 Cel.
The cabbages have been wrapped in newspaper and are doing okay so far. Found 1 rotten Onion, 1bad lemon.
If you have advise..... let us know. We don't have a root cellar here.
Posts
How well does the storage space stay in the 3-5C range? Do you have a min/max thermometer to check?
ReplyDeleteHi cpf... It will go well below 0 C if we do not do something. We have a vent fan we turn on when the generator is run which circulates the air beside the wood stove down into the crawl space. We also have a propane heater that can be turned on when the temps get too low. We can also leave the two lights on down there, again when the generator is on. Yes, we have a thermometer on the floor down there are check it often. When we get lots of snow we can bank the cabin walls up .... but right now only 8" of fluff.
ReplyDeleteHi Bryan and Vikki,
ReplyDeleteYour crawl space post from last winter when the pump froze got me thinkin a few times while on the tractor doin rounds in the field last summer. I like trying to solve problems like that. I don't know if this would work, but here's one thought. Pushing heated air down into the basement is pushing the air in the opposite direction it wants to go. What if you put a tall stove pipe from the basement up behind the wood stove using your current hole, but without the fan, so that the stove heated the air in the pipe and caused it to rise, in effect suctioning air out of the crawl space. On the opposite side of the room, if you made a hole the size of the stove pipe, cool air from your living space would get sucked into the basement as the pipe pulled air up. The cool air would be falling down into the crawl space, which is the direction cool air wants to go. The cool air should still be quite warm compared to the current crawl space temps when the gen is off. If it worked, you would have constant air movement into the crawl space, practically 24/7 in the winter, powered by your wood stove whenever it was producing heat. Don't know if it would be effective though.....
Hi Bryan and Vikki,
ReplyDeleteIf you want to store your vegetables and fruits, it's very important that they can breathe. A plastic bag is therefor not a good idea. The different kinds of produce should be stored apart from each other in a dark space. Best storage temperature is around 1°C to 6°C. Maybe carrots and some fruits can stand freezing, but potatoes will spoil below 0°C.
Wooden boxes are good containers. You shouldn't stack the produce too high (max. two layers) other ways they'll rot because of the pressure. Carrots can be kept buried in slightly moist sand or earth.
Hope this helps!
Bart
Howdy Evan. You are right. I never thought about it that way. I know about hot air rising and are are definitely going to give that idea a try. Thanks!!!
ReplyDeleteBart... We don't have sand this winter but will try to find some for next year. Went down and took the carrots out of the plastic bags and don't have them piled on top of each other now. All we have for now is cardboard boxes. We keep boxes covered with paper so the light does not get to the potatoes, etc. Also will space the cabbages more. Thanks for the input.
ReplyDeleteThe cold is not the problem w/ the carrots. Someone else mentioned it, too, but store them in sand and they s/b fine.
ReplyDeleteI've also been thinking about the crawl space issue. The air movement idea is OK but you might just end up with more cold in your living space. I was thinking about a closed loop fluid system. A few coils behind the wood stove and then beneath the flow. It would obviously be in conflict with 'heat rises' but it might get enough. Alternately you could put some sort inline manual pump that you could take a few turns on periodically. Something like the manual pumps that people use to move fuel from their pickup tanks. Now back to your crawl space freeze up of last year. You could have a 55gal drum in the crawl space and one in your living space (that would be convenient) and hand pump the warm to the cold...OK that might need three barrels. My final suggestion is an outside woodburner that circulates heated fluid through your building where ever you want it. That gets the woodstove outside, too. You could probably put together some sort of barrel stove burner. The downside is burn time. Bottom line...my suggestion on carrots is better than my heat suggestions.