Root Cellar Ideas for People Without a Root Cellar

Closets, crawl spaces, buried bins and a cold garage: where your potatoes can survive winter.

A real root cellar is lovely. Most of us have a garage and a coat closet. Good news: vegetables just want three things. Cold (32–40°F), humid (85–95%), and dark.

Options I've tried

• Basement corner: partition off a corner near an outside wall, add a vent.
• Buried trash can: a metal can buried to the rim, filled with straw and roots, lid plus a straw bale on top.
• Cooler in the garage: works where the garage stays above freezing; it buffers temperature swings.
• Unheated closet: fine for onions, garlic and winter squash, which like it drier and a bit warmer.

Who stores with whom

Keep apples away from potatoes and carrots. Apples give off ethylene and make potatoes sprout. Onions and potatoes also don't belong in the same bin.

Packing

Carrots and beets go in damp sand or sawdust. Potatoes go in burlap or paper in the dark. Check weekly and pull anything soft. One bad potato really does spoil the bushel.

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