Storing Garden Crops: Cold Storage Tips

Home storing of the less perishable vegetables for winter use has almost become a lost art.

Cabbage, turnips, radishes, beets, carrots, Brussels sprouts, celery, potatoes and apples may be stored in cool and moist surroundings. Onions require a cool and dry atmosphere; and pumpkins, squash and sweet potatoes need a dry place where it is relatively warm.

If you do not have a basement cold room, or an outdoor root cellar, the alternative is to store the cold-requiring vegetables in pits or mounds outdoors. Root crops for storage, including potatoes, should be planted late so the crop will not mature too early.

Storing Garden Crops: Cold Storage Tips

Leave an inch of tops on such vegetables as beets, carrots and turnips. Pack them in boxes between layers of loose soil or sand; dig a trench in a well-drained part of the garden–make it deep enough to leave the tops of the boxes a foot below ground level, and large enough to hold all the boxes; place the boxes in the trench. Then lay boards across the top of the trench, stand a piece of drain pipe or tile up to carry off the air and after a few days when the vegetables have cooled, throw in enough earth to close the space between the roots and the boards. When it gets very cold, heap on enough dry leaves or straw to keep the frost from the soil under the boards. Keep the leaves or straw dry by covering with old canvas or boards. Being dry, the leaves will be easy to handle and resistant to frost, and will be easier to remove when you want to get at your vegetables. Potatoes may be stored in this way if plenty of straw is used so air circulates around them.

Perhaps you will want to make several storage pits with a box of vegetables in each, so you can remove them one at a time without disturbing them all. If so, put a variety of vegetables in each box.

For cabbage, a simple method is to dig a trench 8 inches deep and wide enough for three heads. Pull the heads up by the roots, remove the largest outer leaves, and place the heads top down in the trench. Cover with straw or hay, then soil, and add more soil as the weather becomes colder. Stand a bunch of straw up like a chimney every few feet along the trench to give ventilation.

Brussels sprouts may be kept a short time this way if packed loosely in straw, then covered with earth. However, this vegetable is quite hardy and the sprouts will be usable from the garden until late fall.

For celery, dig a trench as deep as the celery is high and as narrow as possible so the stalks can be packed tightly in an upright position, roots on the soil. Leave uncovered until freezing weather sets in, then cover with straw and 6 or 8 inches of soil. For early use, blanch the celery in the garden, but for mid-winter use, put it in the trench green and blanch it there.

Apples can be kept in barrels laid in shallow pits. Select the best fruit, pack carefully in barrel and nail a burlap sack over the end. Try to have the apples cool when you pack them. Cover the barrel with a foot and a half of straw, then 6 inches of soil. As the cold strengthens, add another layer of straw and soil. Storing apples in barrels instead of open ground keeps them from absorbing a ground flavor.

Onions need cold, dry air. After being pulled, they should be cured by spreading them in the sun several days. Remove tops after curing, cutting them three or four inches above the bulb. Place on slatted racks or trays and store in a cool, dry place where there will be circulation of air. A frost-proof attic is ideal.

Pumpkins and squash should be gathered before frost, and left with stems on. They should be fully mature, and many gardeners leave them in the sun a few days after they are cut, to harden the rind. Store them on shelves in a dry room where the temperature will be about 50 degrees. If warmer they will lose weight; if moist they will rot. Handle carefully to prevent bruising.

Sweet potatoes need the same conditions as pumpkins and squash.

Green tomatoes left on the vines can be saved by pulling the plant and hanging it in a dry, frost-proof place. The fruit will ripen for some time. Peppers can be kept for as long as three weeks if the plants are pulled up and hung upside down in a damp, cool corner of the basement.

Source: WorkBasket Magazine, 1952

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