As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
This is a million dollar survival moment.
Our farmers here plant turnips to build the soil. I Jesus help myself to a few buckets of them each year as I need to survive with non donors stealing things.
I have an old farm house, rock wall cellar, dirt floor. I have published pictures of the barrel stove as that is where the stove is so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Mean temperature is around 48 degrees, which is why I burn wood there as I can elevate that thermal mass from 51 degrees to 61 degrees, depending on the length of time between burns and the below zero cold.
I can get this cellar to 85 degrees and with red coals, the stove shut down, I can get almost all night warmth which bleeds up to the house. I noticed this year that when our late spring arrived, yes the house was cold, but it warmed up a great deal faster as I had the thermal mass warmer in it never got to absolute cold.
The reason for that background explanation is I have turnips and potatoes in buckets stored down there. I noticed that the turnips which were exposed they dried up and got soft. The ones that I had a bucket sitting on top were rock hard yet at the end of May. Now I don't know, if like night crawlers, I can just put newspaper on top or if that will rot, or if I leave a plastic lid on askance........wow there is a word I don't think I ever used but was Inspired by the Holy Ghost to use it, as it fits, but I can tell you that turnips in a 5 gallon bucket will last. This hopefully would transfer to beets, and maybe I can keep the potatoes from losing water volume, a they shrunk by a quarter. Carrots are not too difficult to keep even exposed in a cellar.
In this, the floor is not 85 degrees when it is hot. It will still be chilly as most times I have a jacket on down there tending the stove, and to get things lit up. But what I did, did not ruin the turnips as a food source. They did better than the potatoes, which start sprouting around the end of March. When Spring does not arrive until May, that is too long and they get leggy, so I just curl them around when I plant. Again this year, my source of potatoes decided not to carry them. Do not count on anything.
As I have mentioned, Teddy Roosevelt in writing of the Ohio country, stated that Americans had turnip bins, that is all they ate beside wild game and pole beans in that region. Turnip seeds were light and you can grow a pile of them, and they are sweet if you plant them late so they mature in the autumn.
I never thought much of them, until the farmers here started planting them, and TL and I really like them. I have no problems with the huge ones either as they seem to taste the same to me in being a earthy sweet light cabbage flavor. It is all about a food source.
I'm going to try and see if I can get seeds out some roots I will replant as I have done with other vegetables which will not over winter here. That way I have a renewable food source and I should start by selection get turnips that keep better in my cellar.
I have not tried this as I'm not zone 5, but in theory, I think that if you had an old freezer, would cut a hole in it on the bottom, drill a 6 foot deep hole, put a 6 or 8 inch plastic pipe into that hole, pack it in, put a screen or they have plastic pool covers for pipes which are more durable, that the ground temperatures would keep things from freezing in there from zone 5 south which is most of America. That would be about as labor and cost effective cheap root cellar for most people. Zone 5 and lower have soil temps in the 50's, which would offset about anything for cold, unless it went Ice Age cold.
Put this on the north side of a building where the sun will not be baking it, keept it white and in most cases I would think you could store apples to potatoes in this...........mind you, if it got really cold, you could always bring the produce into a warmer garage..........mind you a non LED light bulb set on a thermostat to run at 45 degrees would probably work too, but that is more work.........I know they said in some literature to have a vent hole too, but that lets in cold air and would be stupid to run a light bul as all the heat would escape. Have to have a way to shut that down in cold temperatures.
Wow, I was just going to mention turnips and here I have been Inspired for a cellar freezer with a remarkable invention worth 10 million in knowledge. I may have to construct one THAT DOES NOT LOCK as you do not want Darwins crawling in and dying. Of course if you had it full of produce, there would be no room for humans.
Oh put a mesh screen on the vent if you put one in, to keep the mice and bugs out.
This is another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Post Script, Now I have another project to clutter my mind, thanks to trying to save you non donors.
Nuff Said
agtG
